


Agent Noir

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Noir, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Awesome Howling Commandos, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Peter Parker, Black Spider-Man - Freeform, Depressed Peter Parker, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Espionage, F/M, Graphic Description, Great Depression, Heroin, Howard Stark is an asshole, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Out of Character, Peggy Carter & Howard Stark Friendship, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, SSR, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow burn Peter Parker/Gwen stacy, Spider-Man Noir AU, Underage Drinking, Undercover, Undercover Missions, Violence, World War II, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:18:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In an alternative universe of an alternative universe, there is a young, black gentleman from the south named Peter Parker. Upon his mother's death, and his estranged father finding out, he and his uncle start their strange adventure in Great Depression New York together.Other words, I really wanted to make Spider-Man Noir black and for some reason also Howard Stark's younger half brother because I thought that would be quite nifty, don't you think?





	1. To Be On Broadway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoy, follow me on my Tumblr mikeyisanauthor to leave me suggestions on what you think I should write next!!!

His whole life, Peter had lived in the south with his Momma, his Uncle Benjamin, and his Auntie May. His Momma said that he didn’t have no daddy because she reckoned he would never’ve believed her for a minute that he, a little black boy, could ever be his son. He didn’t care about no damn absentee daddy who didn’t want him anyways. Life was just fine the way it was before, he doesn’t know why on God’s green Earth it ever has to change.

He can still taste Momma’s sweet tea on the top of his lips and smell the hot coal and ash of the train chugged on down the tracks. He always remembered her hair, almost impossible looking in its dark, thick, kinky beauty. She was gentle, but strong, as the tips of her toes lifted her lofty in the air, like she was flying. Like she was a bird, but birds were free. His Auntie said that when people die their spirits were lifted up by God and taken home to the heavens, free forever. His Momma was a good woman. She was an artist, a dancer, and a singer. His Auntie said that when she got to heaven, she would get wings. That she would use them to fly over Earth, to watch over him and get to see the world like she always wanted to do. God had already given her wings, but they were clipped maliciously and no one seemed to care.

Mary Parker was a damn good woman who’d died in vain. She didn’t get to go out in a big bang or a big fight or peacefully in the middle of the night. It was sudden, unexpected. Just two weeks ago, she was here. Just two weeks ago, she was doing his hair in the bathroom and making her famous sweet tea and dancing in an empty theatre long after everyone else had gone home for the day. Now, she’s gone. Dead as a doornail. But his satchel is still heavy with sheet music he’d stolen from the whites’ library for her and the No. 2C Folding Autographic Brownie that she, Auntie May, and Uncle Benjamin all pitched in to get him for his birthday. He didn’t love anything more than his camera, except for his Momma.

Peter gripped the government mandate tight in his hands as the train came screaming to a stop, looking over to his Uncle Benjamin as he stood up out of his seat. He’d tried to encourage him with a smile but they both knew how useless that was these days. He grabbed his luggage and so did his Uncle. They rode all the way up to New York from their home in Mississippi, in the uncomfortable, coal covered seats. He hated it. He didn’t even wanna be here in the first place, and all for what? Because the government told him to? His Aunt and Uncle could take care of him just fine, actually. He didn't need no white man running up in his life and trying to change him several years too late. He didn’t need no papa, he had Uncle Benjamin. Why couldn’t anyone see that he was enough?

“This will be good for you, Petey,” even Uncle Benjamin had said to him, a hand on his back as he leads him down the steps. Traitor.

“You heard Momma, she didn’t want me meeting him. He wouldn’t wanna know nothing about me, much less actually give a care.”

“It would still be nice to know him, he’s your daddy, Peter.” He waved his hand in the air as he tried to reason with him.

“He’d lost the right to be my pop after he ran out on Momma. What makes you think he ain’t gonna do the same thing to me?”

“Are you done giving me lip, boy?” Benjamin snapped at him. “You’re meeting the man, that’s what your Momma would’ve wanted, you hear me? An’ besides, your Auntie worked too hard to get us here for us to go back right just yet.”

Peter nodded dejectedly. His Auntie May was still back down south ‘cause she had worked at the hospital. The only reason he isn’t alone on this trip is ‘cause his Uncle wasn’t getting no pay from the paper he sent his pictures to back home and Uncle Benjamin was figuring maybe New York had something more to offer them than dumb dads no one gives half a damn about. They were bound to be spending some amount of time here anyway, at least until they can buy tickets back home.

They walked down the streets. They were disgusting and unkempt and, by God, did it smell worse than a cattle farm. A cockroach ran across his worn leather boots as they passed Broadway. He could recall his Momma talking about getting to Broadway while she stirred her sweet tea with her straw during her breaks. She talked about taking him there to see the dancers and singers, about taking him and seeing her up on the stage with them. Well, she finally took him, but it wasn’t right. ‘Cause she wasn’t even here to see signs for all the different shows like Boys From Syracuse and Right This Way. He trudged along the street.

His daddy was a businessman or something like that. Peter sat up in some lobby waiting for the old man, his feet swinging off the chair and above the marble, while his Uncle perused the daily paper. This place was way too nicely set up for it to be the black entrance or the black lobby and it was empty. They must’ve cleared it all out to so he could avoid the public embarrassment he’d get for having a black son, being a rich white man and all. He could already see the secretary eyeing them suspiciously like they were criminals because that’s exactly who they were in her eyes. It could never possibly be anything else. He stared back at her until she looked away shakily to get her work done.

“Boss’ll see you now,” a man said, standing in a doorway. Peter and his Uncle Benjamin both moved to stand but the other woman simply waved her hand and smiled. “Your presence won’t be necessary, Mr. Parker. Boss requested that only Peter be sent up. I do hope you understand.”

“Of course, ma’am.” Benjamin nodded, taking Peter’s shoulder quickly. “Remember, I’ll be right down here, no matter what happens.”

Peter gave him a short nod. His lips pursed as he left his Uncle behind and followed the stranger through unfamiliar territory. His hand felt cold without the typographed reason he was here balled up between his palm. He had handed it over to the secretary where she’d carefully overlooked it many a time before calling in.

Since he wasn’t related to his Auntie May, or his Uncle Benjamin by blood and his Momma hadn’t thought to type out a will so early in her short life, anyone who was actually related to him by blood had the right to snatch him and that’s exactly what his daddy had done, as his claim toppled over any godfather or godmother would. More accurately, he requested a meeting that would decide whether or not he would snatch him away. A situation he’d never known he’d be afraid of until now was being snatched from them without even having a say. If he were to be snatched away, it would be easier on them and they wouldn’t have to worry about how they were gonna pay for all his medical bills or for school. But he didn’t know his daddy, so there was no telling what sort of man he was and that made him feel queasy. He hopes the man just realizes that this was just something far out of his league. Then he could just go home when he and Benjamin got the ticket and try and forget the pain that hounded him with the memory of his Momma.

The secretary opened a door for him, shooting him a quick glance before leaving. Her heels clicked loudly against the expensive-looking floors as she walked off to do work more important than whatever situation her boss was dealing with. He stepped inside the office and shut the door behind himself. It was just as well-decorated as the rest of the joint. Modern pops of color cascading the walls, covered with tasteful, pricey looking works of art. Though he was surrounded by the physical manifestations of riches, his eye was drawn toward the center of the room, where, behind a desk and in a large office chair sat a white man.

“Are you Mr. Stark, sir?” Peter asked suspiciously.

“That I am.” The man who looked awfully young to be anyone his age’s daddy said. He had a well-trimmed mustache and looked like he'd come to life straight off a magazine. “And you must be Peter, I’ve been waiting a good time to finally meet you.” He got up to shake his hand.

His arms remained pointedly at his sides. “No offense, sir, but ain’t you awfully young to got thirteen-year-old cats running around? I mean, I don’t really believe that my Momma was out here making babies with one.”

“Oh no, I’m not that Mr. Stark. I’m Howard Stark Junior, and I’ve been watching you for a while now. You’ve excelled in every classroom you’ve ever been in and have maintained a flawless GPA. You've graduated from your senior last year at your local high school, right? That is incredibly impressive, especially considering your uhh… circumstances, Mr. Parker.”

“To be honest that seems pretty irrelevant right now. Where’s the other Howard then?”

“Our father passed away a while back, unfortunately.”

“So, then, who sent the letter?”

“Me, actually. My condolences by the way, for your Mother, she seemed like a kind woman.”

“So… you made me waste money just to hear ‘my condolences’ from some random stranger who I ain’t even know for fear of being ripped away from my last two family members? This had been a colossal waste of time, so thanks for that.” Peter put on a fake smile with a sarcastically chuckle.

“Wait! I know what this looks like, just gimme a minute to explain myself here, kid!” Stark pleaded, and because and only because of the morals his Momma had instilled in him at an early age, he turned around.

“You got one minute, sir.”

“Look, I’m sorry for giving you and your Aunt and Uncle a spook, but I’ve been needing to talk to you because I’m working on something colossal, Mr. Parker. Only you can help me.”

“Why me? I’m just a kid from Mississippi.”

“You’re so much more than that, Pete. You could be so much more than that! You’re wicked smart it seems and smart’s are exactly what I need!”

“I don’t care about none of your dumb projects, so don’t go an’ try an’ rope me into this none. If that’s all, I’ll be on my way out.”

“You can’t just leave!” Howard practically yelped. “An opportunity like this doesn’t just happen every day, Mr. Parker!”

“Then watch me go.”

Peter stormed his way into the lobby, his hands curled into tiny fists as his steps echoed angrily through the hall. Uncle Benjamin got up when he saw him, the paper gently falling onto the mahogany wood table as he went to chase after him.

“Peter, wait!” He called, Peter wouldn’t get very far very fast because of his asthma so he stopped. “What happened, pumpkin-eater?”

“He wasn’t there,” He huffed, arms crossed over his chest.

“What do you mean he wasn’t there?”

“We got scammed! Some egg named, who’s also named Howard for some reason, faked it just to meet me! Talkin’ about needing a younger version of him to help him with whatever he was working on, I dunno. I left before he could get into his crazy talk.”

“But what about your daddy?”

“Said he was dead too.” Peter shrugged. Ben swallowed hard, pulling his lips into a straight line, his hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“Pete, how ‘bout we go find a place to check-in for the night and you can tell me about it.”

“I’m fine, Uncle Benjamin, it don’t bother me none. Never knew him anyways. Maybe it’s better I never knew him, just leave him a faceless blob or whatever.”

“Boy, won’t you stop it now? I can tell you’re hurtin’.”

“I’m just frustrated, Uncle Benjamin, I’ll be alright.”

“Whatever you say, Pete. Now c’ mon, I saw an add for a place just down the road from here we can check out.”


	2. Sweet Song Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter experiences the nightlife of New York in the 1940's!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you've had a good day today, if not I hope i can make it a little better, follow me on my Tumblr mikeyisanauthor to leave me suggestions on what you think I should write next!!! that or like, harass me.

Uncle Benjamin’s got a job, a regular one that pays decent enough to keep them in New York. They live in a spider infested apartment in Queens, one bedroom and no bathroom. Peter didn’t like it so much, but he never liked change so much.What he didn’t like most of all was how much he found he actually enjoyed New York after a few weeks. He had to have gone through at least two whole rolls of film since arriving. There was so many places that caught his eye that seemed to change everyday. There was a certain allure, a draw, that his home in Mississippi didn't have. His home had the slow, warm, rustic light that came from the canopy hanging above in the sky, but New York had… just something special about it. He didn't know quite what, but it was a magical place. 

Peter was married to his camera but his dancing shoes he’d shoved deeper in his luggage due to the fact he wasn’t ready to dance again without a pair of fairer, accompanying feet. However, his Uncle Benjamin desperately wished to see them with a semblance of divorce and Peter sent into schooling because it would be better for him down the long run, but Peter couldn’t see it. Of course, he’d done well in his schooling, there is no question to that, and it’s also not like the didn’t enjoy the act of trying to stuff his cluttered brain full with more knowledge that he hoped would organize but never seemed to do any help. He enjoyed school, he enjoyed science, and inventing, but why try to make a life at something you know just isn’t meant to be? Why is it so bad that he wants to be like his Uncle Benjamin? Benjamin said with a hopeless sigh that he just wanted him to be better, but how can you be a better person than your hero?

Uncle Benjamin says that he should focus on getting into college and getting his diploma. “With great power, comes great responsibility,” he says, and knowledge was his power. Peter’s found that his Uncle seems to have this misplaced pride that his Nephew could do anything if he just went to college to get a degree, but he knew that just wasn’t right at all. It would barely get him anywhere in this life. 

Uncle Benjamin says that he should follow his heart, become a fellow man of the sciences, which his older half-brother seems to be as well but he can’t. He’ll just end up somewhere along the path washed up working in a factory, and although he’d really enjoy working in a lab, in fact it’s probably his dream to be in the labs, he’d be best sticking to what he knew, which was taking some damn good pictures.

Peter was also good at sneaking around. At night, the city came alive. They walked around in their cheap shoes and pretty dresses made out of chicken feed bags. The fake pearls and skirts hiked so high the Lord might wanna shield his eyes for a moment and look away, not that Peter judged none. He slipped into clubs late at night where the band played so loud you could hear it halfway across the block. He used to hop from club to club listening to the singers, trying to catch a whiff of a familiar tune he might find back home, but he caught it nowhere. But at The Noir, a woman caught him and dragged him to the front row by his ear with the tune she could carry with such grace he was surprised she was a white woman. Her hair was platinum blonde and chopped short into an uneven bob. She was admittedly taller than he, as she stood in her chiffon and carnation pumps, but she couldn’t have been much older.

Every night since he first saw her set, he’s sat at the front table to the right, where the shadow cast gently on her moon-shaped features. Her makeup was always a blushing carnation shade and so was her dress, but her skin was so pale she looked, often, a corpse walking with her jovial strut amongst the shining stars of stage lights, and of the midnight blackness of stage curtains. One night, though, she noticed him.

She was dressed to the nines, as per usual, and he was… well. He was wearing cheap clothes as per usual, torn and mended with fabric scraps that didn’t quite match. It made him look like a true southern boy who worked on the farm, although he had never set step on a plantation all his life and never planned too. Overtop he wore his black trench coat and his fedora which sat low on his head, making him feel mysterious as the night sky. She approached him too fast for him to take his leave, catching him by his tail and dragging him into her natural spotlight, like one of the New York rats. 

“I been seeing you quite often, you got a name, kid?” She asked with her contralto voice in the lowlight of the alley outside the club.

“I ain’t no kid, but I do got a name. Peter, Peter Parker ma’am.” He stuck his hand out for her to shake and she took it with a pearly smile.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Parker, especially after seeing you so frequently in my audience. It’s not so often that a little Jewish girl like me has got any appreciators.”

“You, Miss Stacy? With no fans? Now, that’s one I find hard to believe, especially with a voice like that. My, the world might actually be ending if that’s true. I been singing since I was little and I still ain’t any good!” Peter rambled.

“Oh, that’s such a kind thing of you to say.” She swooned, “I been singing for a while too and I’m sure you’re good, you just don’t know it yet.”

“Clearly you ain’t heard me singin’ cause I sound like a crying cat,” Peter said, laughing. “But, I’m mighty sorry if I came off like a creep sittin and watchin you ev’ry night.”

“You didn’t seem like a creep at all, though, I did think it was pretty cute seeing you all heart-eyed, looking up at me.” She said nonchalantly.

“Oh, uh- thank you, Miss Stacy, but I gots to git on home now, my Uncle gets real worried ‘bout me, you know how it is.”

“The real question is, will I be seeing you again after tonight, Mr. Parker?”

“Of course, but only if you look real close, ma’am!” Peter smiled, tipping his hat at her as he skipped off.

Getting to talk to the girl was surprisingly worth the deep shit he almost got into with his Uncle Benjamin. He hasn’t felt like this in a while. Happy-ish, y’know? Just enough to forget for a fleeting moment the world didn’t suck so much. He stepped into the apartment, just a few past midnight, the lights still on.

“Boy, where in tarnation have you been?!” Benjamin asked, standing up from the rackety table they had sitting between the living room, which was more a makeshift bedroom, and the kitchenette. 

“I went to see a show, I didn’t think it would go so late. I’m sorry.”

“A show?” Benjamin asked, standing up and going over to his boy to examine him. “You went to go see a show?”

“Yeah. Like with a singer, and trumpets, and stuff.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I thought it was gon’ end earlier like I said. You’ve been saying that I should get out more, explore the city and that’s what I’ve been doing!” Benjamin gave him a weird look. “I didn’t mean to that like that-”

“At least tell me this, pumpkin-eater.” Uncle Benjamin sighed.

“What?”

“Is she pretty?”

“Huh?” Peter blushes.

“Anytime a smart man acts dumb, it’s 'cause of a pretty lady. It’s one of the many rules of life. So, is she pretty?” He asked, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Um, yeah. She’s a real doll, and she’s a real fine singer too,” Peter gushed.

“Good on you, boy. Now git to bed! You keep on going on like this I won’t have a single hair on my black head by the time I’m fifty! I would like to still have some by the time I am laid to rest, boy!” Benjamin waved off the boy, walking his way to his crusty mattress. Peter smiled and flicked off the lights for him.

“Night, Benjamin, I love you!”

“Love you too, pumpkin-eater.”

After that first night Peter and Gwen actually talked, they found each other quite often. Maybe more than they should, but it’s not like they care so much. Gwen was Peter’s best friend now, maybe because she was his only friend in New York but that’s not important. Maybe she likes him, maybe she doesn’t, but he likes her a lot, so he’s willing to stay friends.

At least once a month he and Benjamin receive a letter from his Auntie May. The past two or so correspondence he had with her he mentioned something about that “Gwyneth girl,” May called her. May said she liked her, that she sounded nice and that she would have to come to meet her someday that was to be —crossing her fingers and swearing on a star— soon. She said that off what she saw of his writings of her that he seemed to be but a boy fixin’ to fall in love. What a tad late of a statement that was, was what he would’ve written if he were gonna go on and git his Auntie May’s hopes up, so he didn’t go on and write that. He swore up and down he didn’t like her none that way, but if she could write in an eye roll or add a sarcastic tone, to her Okay, Pete, dear’s she would’ve. She knows that’s how she read his pennings as of late about the sly, clever girl who was only a bit taller and not at all standing a head over him in her tiny chiffon and carnation pumps.

Since Benjamin had actually found work in New York, and his Auntie and his Uncle not wanting to be approximately 1,148 miles apart, May was to find a job in the city. Though Peter didn’t think it easy to be a black nurse trying to find work in a racist white city not fixin’ to be healed by no black hands. But, it is not like such sickly bodies that oozed disease both from their dribbling noses and their souls deserved to be healed by his Auntie’s hands, as they had healed the kind and the caring so many times before, but they needed money. So, she should try to seek out the work and that he hoped she did find, because artistic jobs that his Uncle held and that he one day in the future hoped to hold didn’t pay a lot.

Despite his short time in the city, he had quite the first hand in experiencing how racist it could be. Uncle Benjamin didn’t want him walking out late at night, for fear that the city would consume his nephew whole, not that he would say that out loud to him but it was obvious, but he was almost fourteen, and Peter figured he could handle taking care of himself. While a grid system was easy to maneuver, alleys where the street lights didn’t touch were a lot harder to get around, especially in the first few days they’d been there, making it much easier to be grabbed.

Peter was a very light boy, twiggy almost, and easy to throw around, which made getting cornered by a couple of much bigger, hefty white men a mammoth of a task to be presented. They grabbed him by his arms and ducked him inside the light barren alleyway. Their fists colliding with his brown face. He didn’t know why they hated him, he didn’t know why they wanted him dead, he’d never been anything but polite to anyone who didn’t deserve different treatment, but they did hate him, and they did want him dead. 

Peter managed to escape, but by the skin of his teeth, feeling more tired than he’d ever been his life. Even more tired than when he stayed up for two days straight that one time to finish all the Edgar Allan Poe he’d stolen from the library before anyone noticed. When he looked in the mirror his face was bloody and scrapped in more places than one. His eye was swollen and bruised a purple that was closer to black in color. He was lucky to be alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with me, it does get better than this, but like, i gotta set it up, y'know. gotta have patience n shit.


	3. On the Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Gwen go out as friends and fake siblings so that way Peter can go ride rides on Coney Island for the first time like any good tourist would

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo, follow my tumblr mikeyisanauthor

It happened to be a rather pretty Saturday afternoon. The summer season was coming down to a close as August hit, (Peter had arrived during the last few days of his Aunt’s namesake,) which meant his birthday, how he dreaded it, was to be arriving soon. Too soon, really. His first birthday without his Momma, and without, for the first time as well to his knowledge, his Aunt, once he’d thought about it. He’d attempt to forget, just like he did with his sad, old dancing shoes; to be shoved into the depths of the suitcase, never to be removed until he was ready to be removed from his mourning which he doubts would ever truly happen. Dancing was his Momma's, and to put it simply, it just feels wrong to be without her guiding steps tapping it out to slow jazz on the vinyl that always skipped three minutes into the song. 

On this gorgeous Saturday, his mind rather frequented the thoughts of his excursion to be with Gwen, well, the first planned one to either of their knowledge. Of course, they somehow happened to find each other out of a crowd and spend days together, but after one odd night spent in the alley of The Noir she asked him out to town. When he attempted to tell her that he had no money to spare for such luxuries she cut him off, telling him that she would fund the day. He would feel guilty for allowing but he saw that it would mean a lot to her to have a planned day for their collective adolescent tomfoolery, so he tried to ignore the internal beating he gave himself for being so ungentlemanly. 

This is all the explanation he has as to why he’s standing on the corner outside his Forest Hills, Queens apartment in his nicest clothes and the wide brim, straw hat his daddy had given his Momma after their short-lived affair. 

He hardly remembers how he’d come into this hat, but Peter had known it was one of the many times he’d asked if he had a daddy, after all the kids at school mocked him for not having one. He needed to know he was normal; he wasn’t. One day, the last time he’d asked such a question, she pulled down the hat and told him the truth instead of avoiding it like the nails that stuck up out of the stage floor. How could any man leave a woman like his Momma? A man like Howard, that’s who. Either of them really. Since meeting his white brother he’s started to see him pop up everywhere in the tabloids, like sores on a real working man’s hands. No one gets on top of a pile of money like Howard has sitting underneath his ass, without being a manipulative, abusive bastard. At least Peter was just a regular bastard who ain’t never hurt no man that didn’t deserve it. Well, actually, tried not to hurt anyone.

While in thought, attempting to stay out of the way of busy, uncaring citizens, he caught sight of a carnation dress and victory red painted lips. In the time of two New York footsteps, Gwen appeared in front of him, smiling as wide as ever.

“Hello, dear,” Gwen spoke with her cheery tone as usual. “What’s the chip on your shoulder this evening?”

“I have no clue what you’re on about, woman,” Peter said sarcastically.

“Aw, c’mon, you’re always pressed about something or other! You gonna tell me or am I gonna have to squeeze it out of you?” Gwen asked with her hands on her hips.

“Put as much weight on me as you like, I’m no egg.”

“Fine then, be that way. I’ll just have to do some of my own dicings. Now, are you walking me or are you just gonna sit there all evening?”

“Gwen, I ain’t even got a single clue as to where in the dickens you wanted to take me in the first place. How am I supposed to walk you there if I don’t know?”

“Then I’ll walk you and you can just be my lady for the evening.”

“I can deal with that, my dear gentleman,” Peter smirked, his arm being hooked into Gwen’s as they started to walk. Receiving much rubbernecking of the public as they did so. If anyone asked, they were brother and sister. What? Can’t you see the family resemblance? They’re practically twins!

They walked for the moment in mutual silence, though someone had forgotten to clue in the rest of the city as the constant traffic and gasps due to their closeness penetrated their weak silence often. Yet even that silence did not survive in the great bustling city as Gwen proposed yet another one of her questions that so often found their way to Peter.

“You ever been to Coney Island?”

“What’s that?”

“God, you’re even more uncultured than I thought you were.” Gwen chuckled.

“That’s oftly bold of you to say, especially when I know you ain’t even know how to make sweet tea.”

“Oh shut up, I bet you still wear diapers!” Gwen exclaimed, trying hard not to laugh but composure deftly evading her.

“And you don’t?” Peter asked with a tone that was serious. They exchanged one look. One brief look of almost silence, and proceed to burst out at the seams, Gwen still dragging the shorter boy along.

When they arrived at Coney Island and bought their tickets, Gwen was still leading him along. It was an odd feeling, to be led like he were a woman by one of which he fancied, but he wasn’t complaining if he could spend time with Gwen. Gwen ended up taking him to the Thunderbolt, which looked oftly daunting from where he stood, at the front of the line at a good four-feet, something inches.

“You scared, doll?” She asked, jokingly.

“So very, my dear gentleman. So much so that I might just … faint … right here!” Peter fell into her a little, laughing off his anxiety which only made him feel better for a fleeting moment. “Actually, is it too late to ask for a rain check on this whole thing?” He asked as they were escorted into their car. 

“Mmm … Nah, I don’t think so, doll.” Gwen mocked, smiling out the side of her mouth. “Why, you scared?”

“Not. At. All.” Peter muttered through his teeth, the car jolting forward as it started it's trek upward.

The poorly designed ride made clicks at a rate as constant as his heartbeat, both going faster as the car went up at the same pace until they were high in the air, suspended. Gwen looked rather unbothered. She probably had been on this ride an uncountable amount of times, maybe she even took all her first dates on this ride, but for Peter, this was his first rollercoaster, ever. His fingers trembled at an unprecedented rate, clutching onto the safety bar for comfort.

“Is this a bad time to say I think I might be sick?” He asked meekly, looking quite green at the gills. The car tilted forward for a split second, and they were off down the tracks.

Peter had to hold onto his hat at the winds beat back onto his face, the car moving so fast. Gwen’s hair flew just about everywhere that wasn’t her shoulders and she laughed and laughed as they went down, taking amusement in Peter’s great cries of horror and they were whipped about like a little girl’s paper doll. Peter was afraid of his paper breakfast spilling out from his paper insides, straight from his paper mouth. As the ride stopped and all the passengers exited, Gwen took notice of the pallor in her close friend’s tawny skin and patted his back in a most friendly and mocking manner. Gwen’s hair was certainly a tad more teased than it had been when she’d left her house to meet Pete, the wind knotting her curled, chopped hair like a boy scout trying to earn a new patch.

“It’ll be okay, but give yourself to balance yourself, wife.”

“Wife?” Peter moaned, shoving his wide, circle-framed glasses back up on his Roman nose, clutching at his stomach as he doubled over on the wall right by a few other patrons suffering through the after-effects of the ride right alongside him. “I don’ see no damn ring on my finger, gentleman, don’t be calling me no wife of yours now.”

“Ah, my apologies. Now, if I did happen to procure a ring, would you even say yes, doll?” Gwen asked with an amused tone, arms crossed over her chest.

“Show me the ring and then we'll talk, yeah?”

“Fine, just have it your way then, doll, but at least let me win you a prize.” Gwen smiled, giving Peter a hand which he took then hoisted himself off the wall.

“You say that like I, myself, am not a prize, honey.” Peter jested, his complexion finally seeming to return to its light-skinned self.

“Well then, I suppose if I did I would truly be a clueless ass, huh?”

“Without question.”

Gwen led him off, his arm wrapped in hers as she walked him around. Pulling him into one of the booths, the older man behind the counter was gladly inviting everyone to play his cheaply made game, but seemed off-put when Gwen stepped up to him to play. The game is one of those “Shoot-A-Duck” carnival games you see at every single one you’ll go to, and the man looked as though he were just about to pick up one of those guns sitting on the counter and shoot Peter in the face for just standing so close to Gwen, or maybe drag Gwen on home for trying to play a game herself.

“Could I get a round, sir?” Gwen asked him.

“You sure you don’t wanna go spend your money on something else, like a nice pair of shoes or something?” 

“I have more than enough shoes, sir, but, thank you for your concern. Now, can I get a round.”

“Sure…” He spoke with a venomous tone, “Twenty-five cents, ma’am.”

“Twenty-five cents seems like an awful lot for some strange carnival game, sir.”

“Do you wanna play or not?” He almost yelled at her. 

Peter tried to stand closer to her but she waved her hand at him, making him scoot back because she didn’t need him to defend her, she was perfectly capable of handling herself. She placed the twenty-five cents on the counter and picked up the toy gun, taking aim for the painted ducks and firing. The man behind the counter must’ve thought her a cheat as she fired a swift pace and knocked down every fake yellow duck that tried to cross her path. She won the big prize, which the carny handed over reluctantly, trying to, as he did so, to whisper discreetly in her ear something, to which she put on a sour face and looked at him oddly. She handed him the plush toy she’d won him and ignored Pete’s confused look.

They continued to walk but Gwen’s demeanor changed drastically, and so did the air of their current dynamic. There was a question formulating on Peter’s lips but he was quite too much the coward too ask it because he feared he’d already know the answer because he probably did. Gwen was a very emotional person, and so was he, so her anger quickly became his own concern due to his enormous ability to care about others and how they felt. He wanted not to anger her more but how could he help if he didn’t really know how he could make it better? Was he better off allowing them both to suffer in absolute silence or attempt at helping and failing at the issue at hand to drastically?

“Gentleman?” Peter started, sniffing his round, wireframe glasses back up on his high-bridged, Roman nose. Disturbed out of her upset spacing, she made a soft noise of confusion, not having heard what her lady had said to her. “I would like to ask something.”

“Then ask, my love.”

“What did that ol’ carney say to you back there?”

Gwen scoffed hard, allowing her brown eyes to roll about in her head. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

“Maybe not, but it’s bothering you, so I’d prefer to,” Peter responded in earnest. Gwen looked over her shoulder at the smaller boy who looked absolutely adorable in a puppy sort of way as he looked up at her, clutching the toy she’d worn for him loosely in his thin, pale arms. 

“He asked me if he was to call the police on you for following me so closely since you’re…”

“Black.”

“Well… he didn’t use those exact words, but I think you already understand the illustrated point. It just angers me so much how stupid men like him can just get away with trying to get some boy thrown in jail for standing too closely!”

“I’m used to it.” He sighed. 

“You shouldn’t be!” She whisper yelled into his ear. “It’s wrong! This isn’t how things should be!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Peter huffed, kicking at the ground. “Honestly, if I could change it, I would, but there is nothing I can do to fix it when the whole system is corrupt, my gentleman.”

“Then we must abolish the current standing democracy piece by piece and reconstruct its face to be a more positive, blacker country.” She announced brilliantly, with a gorgeous painted smile on her lips.

“I suppose so, but I only have three dollars, my dear gentleman.”

“Me too, doll.” She shrugged unceremoniously. 

They both decided against any more carnival games or roller coaster rides for the rest of the night, instead deciding to just to slum it in the filthy streets of the blacker side of Queens before having to deliver Peter back home. The conversation was not a thing they truly needed, as they were almost always enamored quietly in one another’s subtle beauty, and had felt like they already knew each other quite deeply for being hardly more than strangers.

It was almost passed his curfew by the time Gwen had finally delivered him to his shabby, infested apartment. Both their feet aching so bad there might as well have been blood in their shoes. Uncle Benjamin was sitting in front of his pinboard, an array of colored strings at his side and hundreds of pictures sitting in front of him when Pete walked in the door. He quietly sat the toy Gwen had given him down, slipping off his shoes, and throwing his trench coat, and fedora onto the coat rack.

“Pumpkin-eater,” Benjamin announced loudly, looking over toward his adopted Nephew, “I think I just hit something huge.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for sticking with me, i promise it gets better like chapter five or six-ish, gimmie some validation in the comment section place pweaseee


	4. Full Speed, Mysteries Ahead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pwease follow my tumbly, mikeyisanauthor

August sweeps in right under his nose. All the New York children were heading to school, which they were now legally mandated to do. Peter wasn’t a city baby though, so he’d stick close to the walls, trying to find odd jobs to get done to slide his uncle under his nose, hoping miscalculated math would keep him distracted from his growing agitation at him for choosing to ignore his studies, though he absolutely refused to go back to that rat-nosed bitch Howard.

But really, without him noticing, it was really the tenth of the month, his birthday, making him fourteen years breathing. Peter didn’t care much for gifts or cake, or anything of that sort, never really had, not like he could afford it anyways. He much preferred to be in the company of those he cared for most, making this day unexpectedly bitter, like a cup of salt poured into his batter. It was unlike his natural bitterness that occurred to him in his day to day life dealing with the average struggles of not being Caucasian and of being Stark Senior's wayward, abandoned son, but more like a true slap to the face. His shoes were still buried in his travel case, now, underneath nothing but the debilitating weight of loss and anguish of mourning. He missed his Momma to the deepest extent a soul as small as his could, having nothing to do but paint the walls of his white skull with the color of her blood in the extended alone time he had since Gwen was booking more and more shows. And, Uncle Benjamin didn’t want him around the story he was writing, (not like that didn’t pique his interest more; and, give him some sort of drive to piece the story together himself from the sidelines).

Peter knew very little about what his Uncle was working on other than that it was huge. It might even win him some fancy prize from what he overheard him telling his journo friend at the paper he was working at, but nobody who’s anybody could know about it for risk of being sold out by someone who heard the wrong thing at the right time. Peter didn’t know how to feel about other than a gut-wrenching excitement for the story that was to come. He remembers all the times he’d painted his face pale and stole mysteries out of the white section of the library, The Hounds of the Baskerville and The Woman in White being two he distinctly remembered slipping onto his trench coat and off into his home he used to have, as a just thief in a cruel world.

Peter had always longed for a mystery, and down in his hometown, where the drawl of sweet tea on slow, southern lips, he was always bored, but the slowness he grew comfortable with, and he let go of everything to be a little duckling for the theatre arts. Perhaps the mystery and the allure of New York was now what so swiftly changed his mind. Having arrived on poor terms may very well have altered his initial perception, but now he finds joy in intentionally getting lost in the streets he was allowed to strut feeling like a real boy straight out of a print comic book page.

Though today was no day for mystery; it was a day for dread and a dull, stabbing want for an escape of his incessant pain. Benjamin had taken off work specifically for today, something he shouldn’t have done for someone as horrible as him when they needed the money. Peter couldn’t even be bothered to kick his feet up and move them onto the floor. There was no sunlight in his room because they couldn’t afford one of those rich people apartments with windows so a dark overcast shown over him. But, when did it not, when he was the most pathetic creature to make do on Earth? When he couldn’t even find the strength to throw a foot in front of the other. It wasn’t like Benjamin could stand to see him like that though, no, he couldn’t stand seeing his Nephew so downtrodden when he used to always wear a smile despite his internal struggles.

Uncle Benjamin rolled his boy out of bed, determined to not have a birthday wasted and ordered him to put on his Sunday clothes, despite the fact it was definitely not Sunday because they were going for a walk. A walk that would ruin his good shoes for sure. Not that Peter valued anything of his appearance anyways, being the most average, almost white looking boy who ever lived. Gwen probably didn’t even like him, she was off visiting family today, but that could be a lie, she could very well be off with some much more handsome man than he. And why shouldn’t she? She was so beautiful, why would a woman like her every want some bottom of the barrel, black boy like him? Why would anyone ever want to be around him? Honestly, it would be safe to assume that everyone around him only tolerated him.

As Peter’s regressive self-loathing raged on he pulled on his nice clothes. Pete’s Uncle checked Pete’s shoes to make sure he hadn’t tied them together as a result of his dissociative state as they walked out the door and down into the city. They walked all the way down to the train station and sat. Multiple trains had come and gone before Pete asked what they were doing there, to which his Uncle simply replied that he’d just have to see.

By the time the fifth train had arrived in the time Pete and Uncle Benjamin had been sitting there he stopped looking up like he was expecting something amazing to happen, (because nothing amazing could ever happen to him, why couldn’t he just get that through his thick skull?) Instead he was absent-mindedly chewing off his fingernails, and when those were dull he moved to pull off the skin around his now dull nails, a quite nasty habit of his that he likely wasn’t to be stopping anytime soon. 

As the fifth train screamed to a stop, Pete didn’t notice it but his Uncle’s head shot up to see its wheels halt on the iron tracks. Standing as the black passengers exited, which Pete did notice, a smile spread across his Uncle’s face. Looking up himself, at the great big metal beast, an almost middle-aged black woman walked out its doors, a suitcase in arms. It was from Aunt May! They all were soon in one great group hug, gasping at how much they’d missed each other’s company.

They walked almost in tandem, Uncle Benjamin trailing behind ever so slightly to make way for his Nephew’s and his Wife’s reunion on the boy’s special day, there would always be time later for their own reunion, especially with the prestige the article he was working on was about to bring him. For a while, Benjamin Parker has been looking for a big break from writing blurbs on the backs of papers or snapping the shot above the fold but his name oh-so conveniently barely legible. But this story would put him where he and every god-fearing, hard-working black man deserved to be; the headline, and maybe he could convince his Nephew to screw his damn head back on right and show him that he could and should pursue what he actually wanted too and be a man of the sciences.

For tonight, Benjamin had already started on a nice little meal that he’d saved up a few checks on. It was Peter’s favorite, and a recipe he hadn’t dared touch since his Nephew’s Momma passed since she was the one who’d always made it for them. Benjamin hoped it would be a nice little surprise and a pick me up for both his Wife and his Nephew. As they made it to their place, Benjamin reflected on the tragedy of Mary’s early passing again for seemingly the hundredth time since she’d been declared dead. The truth is, he and Mary weren’t the closest of friends. They enjoyed each other’s company, yes, but May and Mary were much closer and had been for a while; having met when May was much younger and studying to become a nurse at school and such. Though she and he had not as close as he’d wished to be, she left a hole in his heart, and a split seam seeing her Son mourn her. 

So, as they walked in, Benjamin took the food he’d prepared off the broiler and put it on the table for them, kissing his gorgeous wife on the cheek. Her skin was gentle and still sunkissed unlike his, which had been paled by the neverending smog that clouded the city of New York, just as his boy’s had. Before stepping back out, he took one care look back over the two of them saying their well-wishes on his way out the door, his boy had a smile on his face as he waved. He placed his fedora over top his head and ducked out the door and into the almost mild day.

Benjamin’s big story was about the corruption that was not so well hidden just beneath the surface of the dirty new york streets. Certainly not well hidden enough he was about to have it all broken open and sent in for editing tomorrow morning. There was this man, another journalist, named Ben Urich, he was going to meet who had been recommended to him, said to have the inside scoop he’d been looking for on this. Though he had received more than a few warnings that this might not be so well received by some people, that did not deter him. He needed the money, and he wanted to send that bullheaded boy off to college. So, he and Ben Urich were to meet in the alleyway behind the Bowery Welfare Center.

After dinner was finished Peter helped wash up with his aunt, putting their glass plates back in the cupboard and the silverware in the kitchen drawer, he snuck out. He had told her he had left to go see Gwen for a little while, promising her to not have too much fun with a false laugh and a quick smile, but of course she was out of the city today, so, he’d just go on and do what he’d normally do, try and seek out Uncle Benjamin and see if he could do anything to help with digging up the much covered up deeply run corruption of the banks or some crooked politicians, because it’s not like he had anything better to do with his time, He’d just tell his Aunt that she had something to do or something later, whatever came to his mind when he would get back to his unpacking Aunt.

Despite his waiting and his triple checking the address he’d been told to meet Ben at to make sure he was at the right spot, he never came, which made him worry but he couldn’t pay it any mind right now. So, he shoved the worthless piece of paper down into the depths of his pants pockets and went to go on walking down his way. Before the dimming sunlight could reach his face a few much bigger men walked out into his path, encasing his whole body in a dark, black shadow.

By the time Peter poked his head into the alleyway Benjamin had been waiting in, the other men were gone, and his seemingly infallible Uncle was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's gonna be like, interesting now


	5. Stepping Up On My Soap Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow my tumblr mikeyisanauthor to leave suggestions or anon hate comments

People are easy to die, that’s what Peter’s been learned, having seen his small, tightly knit circle of family fall almost completely undone in less than six months, there was now but two stitches left, Auntie May and him. A funeral came and went before Gwen could even get back in town, but Peter and Aunt May were the only two to show up anyways. It was a closed casket funeral, one of the only pictures they actually had of him put on top in a quaint little frame. Peter would’ve liked it to have been an open casket but he didn’t think his Aunt could handle seeing her Husband’s face torn to shreds as he’d found it. Peter knew this wasn’t just any mauling. Hell, they were in a concrete jungle, not a real one. Peter knew deep inside it was murder, and the guys who did it were the guys his Uncle was investigating. Couldn’t have been anyone else. They were just covering their tracks, but he couldn’t let them get away with this. He’d rather die than live with this injustice.

Peter and his Auntie both didn’t have the money to pay for a funeral, so it was a surprise they were able to have one so soon, but an anonymous donation was made and everything was handled and out of their grieving hands. Peter had no suspicion as to who had donated the money and he was fine with just letting it be that. Mr. Stark, his older brother he supposed had sent him a letter, to which he had responded by leaving it on the dinner table, unopened and unread. His Aunt told him that he should read it but Peter had devined that the man had nothing of substance or any interest to him. Besides, if it was really that important Mr. Stark get into contact with him, he could always transverse into the black side of New York and tell it to him to his face.

While whoever donated the money to the funeral had certainly done them great kindness, Peter could’ve only wished that maybe they could’ve spent that kindness on the living too. May’s job was gone in a flash, fired in October, and they were left scrounging for whatever scraps they had left; he was almost considering taking the job that Mr. Stark had offered him. It would be a bit of a walk, he might have to cut through several alleys to get there in the mornings, (which he now had a very vivid fear of), but it looked like it would pay well. He desperately wanted to help out, put out anything so there could be some food on the table and his Auntie wouldn’t starve, but he couldn’t go back there, not after Mr. Stark had made a fool of them; made a fool of his Uncle.

Some time had passed since his death since May lost her job, and in that time May took to the soapbox. She helped out at the Bowery Welfare Center, to voice the injustices they’ve gone through, and to rouse the people. Tonight, she drew in quite the crowd. Peter even thinks that he might’ve seen Gwen at one point, poking her head through the see of dismal people, but he probably just made it up. They haven’t really talked since a little after the funeral and now it was late November, and the first snow had already hit. She had a lot going on too, he could understand that last he heard she was gonna get a little record made or something and he was happy for her, he just wished that he could be there for her to see it happen.

“The government promised that our jobs were secure, but more than thirteen million of us are out of work now!” Auntie May yelled, her ratty scarf wrapped around her scratchy throat, her voice breaking a little from the length of her protesting. “The only thing the Republicans and the Democrats are discussing is the most efficient way to turn our sweat and blood into profit!”

As May goes on, a well-dressed man from the crowd says, “Get off your soapbox, grandma!” That man being Fancy Dan and the two with him. The Enforcers, the mobster, The Goblin’s muscle. 

The mobster that Uncle Ben found the scent of and the one that killed him. Gwen had told him a little about The Goblin and his goons, but the gist of it was to stay away. That was when she had regaled him with an encounter she had, trying to give a performance that got interrupted by a shootout. They certainly looked as tough as they sounded, but nothing really scared Peter anymore and certainly not death. 

“If you don’t like it here in America, you can always get on a boat and join your comrades back in Russia or leg a ride back to Africa, where you came from!”

“The last time I checked, the Constitution protects my right to freedom of speech,” May responded, unwavering on her soapbox that often creaked underneath her feet, threatening to break.

Fancy Dan then tells one of the Enforcers to, “Help the old woman down!” 

However, Peter runs up in front of them, and in between the three of them and Aunt May, coming at them yelling, “If you leg a finger on my Aunt-” but before Peter could get another word out, Ox gut punches him.

“It’s way past your bedtime, kid!” Ox, one of the Enforcers, tells him as he knocks the air from the fourteen-year old’s lungs. 

“Let him go!” May shouts. The other enforcer, Montana, cracks his whip knocking her down, and wrapping her up.

Just then, a man with a camera’s voice cuts through the crowd. “Say cheese!” He says, and there’s a flash of light, forever depicting the three of them beating on the innocent woman and teen boy. The reporter was a middle-aged man with dark, sharp features and a chiseled nose. The pallor of his white skin stuck out amongst the dirty faces of the crowd, made unclean from their hard, long days at work or from the grime of the streets. He looked grizzled and tired, longing for better days in reporting than this one.

Dan looks over at the man, stating, “Well, would you look at that! Ben Urich poking his nose in the muck as usual!” 

Ox grabs the reporter, Ben Urich by his trench coat. “I’ll smash up that camera of yours.” He said menacingly, his breath smelling putrid, breathing down on Ben. Dan pulls Ox off him by his shoulder.

“Urich is off limits, you know that!” Fancy Dan said to him with a calm but oftly matter-of-fact tone, trying to get Ox to see some reason. Ox lets him go, and Dan tells Urich, “You better be careful, you’re pushing your luck.” Dan scowled in his direction. The three of them left.

By that time, most of everyone else had left, the fellow protesters having been spooked seeing The Goblin’s men coming after May and Peter. Peter groped for his wire-frame glasses, hiking them back on top of his Roman sculpted nose, loosely curled hair now coated in snow. Ben helped pull him back up onto his feet.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Yeah, I‘m fine,” Peter mumbled.

“Thank you so much for helping us,” May says, dusting the snow out of Pete’s hair.

“You’re both very welcome,” Urich tells them, tugging his trench coat a little tighter to his body. “My car is just down the way, please, allow me to give you both a ride home.”

A short while later, they’re over at the Bowery Welfare Center. “Is this the hotbed of the revolution?” Urich asks.

“It’s what the sign says,” May spoke, a small smile on her face, filled only due to her gratitude. “We give the homeless a hot meal, and a place to come out of the cold.”

Urich laughs, “Sounds like a little too much Socialism for some people.”

Peter points to the fence where some of the things are stored. “They had to put those ugly things up after my Uncle was killed by one of Goblin’s mobster.”

“We don’t know if it was The Goblin’s men who did it.” Peter’s Aunt May said with an exasperated sigh.

“I know it.” Peter shrugs as May makes her way up the steps and inside the building, the heavy door slamming after her.

“Damn it!” Peter yelled once she was inside. “Why do these gangsters have to come after us! It’s the system that we’re attacking! Corrupted banks! The businesses! The politicians!” Urich listens as Peter goes on, and thinks to himself that he should just get in the car and drive away, but there’s something about this kid’s sheer stubborn, righteous anger. Maybe he wanted to test him, show him the brutal reality of the world. To watch that light in his eyes die out.

After another short drive together, Urich takes Peter down an alleyway, which he would have to admit, made his knees shake and his palms just a little sweaty, but Peter thinks that he can trust Urich for the moment.

“I really hope that you’re not a prohibitionist.” Ben says, “Because you’re about to entire the hottest speakeasy in town. Welcome to the Black Cat.” 

The doors swing open and inside is an underground bar, A woman looks up from the level below at them. “Are you babysitting now? Who’s the kid?” She asks. She’s covered in a fluffy, off-white, fur dress and all sorts of diamond and pearl accessories, to Peter she looks like she’s adorning more money on her wrist than he’d ever see in his life.

“This is Peter Parker. Don’t mind the bruises, he got into an argument with Ox. Peter, meet the owner of this fine establishment, and the only woman I’ve ever asked to marry me, which, God knows why she turned me down.” She calls out to one of the waitresses to go clear out Urich’s table and get him a drink. Urich laughs.

“Make it a whiskey, double, on the rocks, and a soda for the kid.”

“I’ll take a whiskey,” Pete says, still taking in the atmosphere around him. The floors were a royal purple, and the walls a homey beige color. On the walls hung a huge painting of a black cat and off the ceiling there were crystal chandeliers Peter thought matches the Felicia. 

Felicia stares at him, asking, “Are you even old enough to be drinking?’

“I’ll show you my birth certificate when you show me your liquor license,” Peter tells her.

Felicia smiles, telling him, “The kids got a mouth on him!”

“He gets it from his Aunt.”

The two of them sit down at Urich’s table, which is covered by a white table cloth. The seats they sat in were a maroon color and were made with a silky leather. The seats were almost taller than him and felt like they belonged in a king’s court, not some speakeasy. 

Once the two of them are sat down, their drinks on the table, Peter asks, “Why did The Goblin’s thugs back off when you showed up? They said you were ‘off-limits.’”

“Power of the press I’m guessing, but that’s why I brought you here. By the way, you and your Aunt are talking-”

Peter cuts him off, “We should keep our mouths shut? Aunt May believes in something! And I believe in it!” He yelled defensively. 

Ben stops him. “And that’s good an’ all, believe that if we all became good little Socialists and worked toward the greater good that it’ll all be sunshine and roses! That’s one hell of a dream but take a good look, this is reality, kid. That guy wrestling with the brunette? That’s Jimmy Strider, mayor of New York and that dame is not his wife! To his left is the Chief Detective Rien from the Vice Squad. That creep he’s schmoozing? That’s Amilo Alcoono, runs half the brothels in New York! Then there’s Aldoris Crane, the industrialist, and your Uncle Ben helped start a demonstrations that closed three of his sweatshops with some of those papers he printed. And at the center of it all, that’s Norman Osborn! The Goblin. You wanna know why The Goblin is after you? The truth is The Goblin doesn’t give a damn about you or anyone else! He’s freelancing and is working for whoever is the highest bidder! They use him because it would look bad to have the police suppressing freedom of speech.”

“So you’re saying that the Mayor used The Goblin to kill Uncle Ben?” Peter asked, his eyes filled with desperation.

“It was probably Alcoono who made the deal, and Crane most likely put up the fee, Rien probably made sure the cops were looking the other way, and the Mayor just sits back, taking a percentage. It’s a tangled web that they weave.”

“Why do they call him The Goblin?” Peter then asks, looking over at him.

“No one really knows. Probably because of his Enforcers that he choice came from every broken circus freakshow he could find. The classy man with the monkey? That’s Craven, he was an animal trainer. The bald one’s Vulture, he’s a geek, The Goblin found him caged up, biting the heads off live chickens.”

Just them Fancy Dan walks up to their table. “Look what the cat dragged in!” Behind him, Norman walks up.

“Good evening Urich,” Norman tells him, “And Parker, is it? Your Uncle was Benjamin Parker? The agitator? Please accept my deepest consolidations for his unfortunate passing, Ben was torn apart by, ah, what was it? A pack of dogs?” 

Peter grits his teeth. “My Uncle was murdered by low life scum and you ain’t fit to even say his name!” Peter then takes his glass and throws it at Norman, emptying the very last of its contents on Norman’s expensive-looking white fur coat and his face. 

The Vulture opens his mouth and hisses at him so Norman holds him back, saying, “Not here.” Norman wipes his face dry, telling Urich, “You better teach your young friend some manners. He is your friend, right?”

Urich gets up telling him, “Oh yes, c’ mon Peter, we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

A few moments later, the bouncer throws Peter out and Felicia tells Urich, “You know the rules, don’t bring your squabbles into the Black Cat. The kid can come back when he’s grown up a bit.”

As the door shut Urich tells Peter, who’s still picking himself up out of the snow, “What you just did in there was the stupidest single thing that I have ever witnessed! Do you realize what you-” 

But Peter stops him and asks, “What?” And Urich fights down the urge to put Peter down himself.

“It’s nothing, I’ll take you home now.” 

Peter tells him, “I got the message, you wanted me to see what was going on in here and that it can’t be fought against, but I will never close my eyes and run away!”

“You wanna do something? You wanna really make a difference?” Urich asks Peter.

A short while later they’re at Jay Jonah Jameson’s office, Jonah tells Peter, “Sit down, Urich has told me you’re a good kid, said you’re an orphan, lost your Uncle a few months back. Benjamin Parker was a fine man. A little red around the gills for my liking, but still. So you wanna study what? Science? But you can’t afford college? Well, you could make do with a job here in the meantime.”

Peter tries to say no, but Jonah asks him, “Did you know that there’s a married couple living under the bridge in Central Park because they have nowhere else to go? There are children starving in the middle of the richest nation that has ever existed. There are a million sob stories out there and none of them are special until we make it special. Urich has a unique talent. He knows how to put words and pictures together. A picture can be worth a ten thousand words, coming from a man who makes a career on words.”

As Jonah pushes the two of them out of his office, Peter tells him, “I don’t really know what to do.”

Urich stops, telling him, “Don’t worry, you just gotta be better than the guy setting up the gear. You’re not a real photographer, not yet, at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pwease sir, might i recieve some sweet validation in those comments? also, my updates might be sporatic due 2 the fact my life in crumbling into little pieces like when you grab a huge ol chunk of brown sugar and squeeze but i'll always update on an even day cause that's just who i am as a person


	6. Camera Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter enjoys the luxury of having a new father figure in his young teenage boy life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few minutes late but leets a goo

Chapter Six - Camera Boy:

The next few weeks Urich and Peter spent together taking pictures. Peter was there to help set up the lights and everything else and he got a chance to see what really happens out there; poor living on the streets, families with five or more children all living in a single room, a man who hung himself so he wouldn’t have to pay his debt to The Goblin, but, the man was wrong, he still had a debt, and his wife would have to pay.

After all this time and seeing all these things, Peter started to open up to Urich, really opened up. As Urich and Peter sit in a diner, Peter looks at his coffee, stating, “That widow, she knew who to blame, everyone knows what The Goblin’s doing but everyone’s too scared to do anything! No one sees or hears anything! One day, someone has to talk. That’s all it’s gonna take! Just one or two people with the guts to tell the truth and The Goblin’ll be finished!” Peter went on. “That night that my Uncle died? It was me who found him. There were rope marks. He was tied up so he couldn’t fight back. After they beat him, they sent the wild dogs on him and tore him apart!”

Urich listens, but this is old news to him. The only thing he didn’t know was that it was Peter who found the mutilated body. Later that night Urich heads home, still thinking to himself that he had it bad but Peter? He’s known loss his entire life. The truth is Peter has every reason to be bitter at the world. Urich opens the drawer to his desk taking out a small taking out a small bag and heats up a spoon. He then takes out a needle, sucks up the liquid, and injects it into his arm. He leans back as the heroin runs through him, telling himself, “Peter was wrong about one thing, it wasn’t the dogs that tore Uncle Benjamin apart, it was the Vulture.” After being treated like an animal for so long, something in Adrian Toomes just snapped. He developed a taste for human flesh and how would he know that Benjamin Parker was cannibalized? Because, God help him, he was there, and he watched it all. He could recall exactly how Peter’s Uncle’s blood dripped onto the dirty pavement below as Adrian ripped through layers of skin at a time and shoveled internal organs into his mouth like he was a kid in a candy store. In was the most disgusting thing he could ever recall seeing his life.

Just two weeks later, they’re taking picture of a burning building, and Urich was beginning to realize something: Peter’s passion for justice just started to get to him. He started to feel anger when they would report things they knew were not an accident. This building didn’t just burst into flames, but this was the owner cashing in on insurance money. While Urich begins to develop photos, Peter watches, telling him, “I’m not even shocked that this is happening anymore.”

Urich sighs. “You’re too tired. You can’t send your whole life being disgusted and outraged, it’ll make you go crazy.” Whether or not today’s fire was an accident, there was nothing they could prove. Peter takes a closer look at one of the pictures.

“The proof is right here! Fancy Dan is in one of the photos that we took! We could take this it the cops, get an investigation going!”

“There’s no point, everyone in the city gets a cut! Cops, insurance investigators, everyone! And it doesn’t stop there, it goes all the way to the top! There’s no one who could even talk that would have any power to even do anything.

“I know,” Peter says, “My Uncle Ben used to be a pilot in The Great War. He said that there was no reason to be fighting, no great cause. It was a war on markets. The old colonial empires carved up the new world, they sent out boys by the millions to die, all to safeguard their profits!” Peter shouted angrily, Urich was hardly able to see his arms jerk about in his passionate, justified rage in the dimly lit room. “He also said, that if those in power couldn’t be trusted, it’s the responsibility of the people to remove them!”

Urich begins to take down the photos, telling Peter, “That’s a nice speech and all, but while we’re waiting for the revolution, maybe we should get these pictures to The Bugle.”

Peter grabs the envelope that contained the pictures they’d gotten. “Yeah, right. The public’s gotta have its daily dose of misery, huh?”

As they leave, Urich looks back at the photo of Fancy Dan, still hung on the wire where all the rest of the pictures had developed.

After dropping off the pictures they went their separate ways for the day because of course, they were both individuals with things to do that weren’t centered around taking pictures, despite one of them had a career in them, and the other’s prospects of doing such looking quite bright.

As Peter continuously worked, money seemed just a little less, and a little less tight. So, yes, he might’ve splurged, but what was life without living? After getting food for the next few days for Aunt May, he bought a ticket to Gwen’s performance that night in some huge speakeasy that certainly paid well, some big-name artists he’d heard of had played there before. So he was hoping to catch up with her, it had been a few months after all.

Peter moved his way through the people when he got through the doors. He grabbed a drink from the bar before inching his way upfront, where he’d hope she would see him. From his memory, she had not much changed, she looked about the same as when he’d last seen her, for a split second in the crowd, but now he could point out the difference a little better now, now that it was, quite literally, standing in a spotlight. She was wearing a straight, long, gown that was a titanium white, the color of virgin purity, with a single string of pearls around her neck and a few hanging off her jeweled headband. Her blazing red locks were a great deal longer, now reaching her shoulders and it was curled perfectly with four distinct waves in it. She had a bloody berry lip color, cheeks filled with a bright blush, and her shadow was deep and dusty, with a strong liner to match. 

Peter felt happy for his wayward friend, in a gut wrenched sort of way. He was glad she’d found success, she certainly deserved it. He’d never heard a white woman who could sing quite like she could, not with such power and such swing. The uneasiness came in knowing that she was soon to be, if not already, swept up with the secret under goings of New York’s corruption. All he knew was that he didn’t want his next photos for The Bugle to be The Amazing Miss Stacy’s body found mutilated somewhere for “unknown” reasons. For a second, he thinks she looks as him, but he couldn’t tell because in the next the song was over and the next people were going up on stage. Some flappers with their dyed feathers. They were easy on the eyes, but not what he came here for, so he snuck his way into Gwen’s dressing room. Of course, he knocked on the door and waited for a faint “come in,” before waltzing inside.

She was sitting at a wooden vanity, staring at herself in the mirror. She looked over her shoulder to the dark figure that now occupied her room. She was genuinely surprised to see Peter standing there.

“Peter!” She exclaimed, standing up. “Is that really you?”

“No, I’m three black kids in a trench coat. I snuck back here to ask you how taxes work.”

“Oh, Pete, it’s been a while!” She rushed over to hug him.

“You miss me that much, huh?” Peter joked, pulling apart to look at her. She was smiling, but she was misty-eyed. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” She sighed, playing it off and wiping away the wet from her eyes with the back of her manicured hand. 

“It isn’t nothing if it’s makin’ you cry.”

“... It’s just that, I was so worried after I heard about you Uncle, but the longer I waited to come and see you, the worse I felt about going, and I just feel so horrible for not being there for you!” She sniffled, blinking back tears.

“It’s… okay, Gwen.”

“It’s not! I left you when you needed me and I couldn’t even collect myself to see you! I am a horrible friend!”

“You’re right I guess, it wasn’t the best of you, but what if we went out tonight, just you and me? We could talk… about everything, y’ know.” Peter said, trying to reason with her. Peter didn’t want pity or consoling, not from her, and not from no one. What he wanted was to see who killed his Uncle brought down for good.

“Okay, okay,” Gwen nodded, collecting herself. “That sounds nice. Let’s go. Right now.”

Peter nodded wordlessly and Gwen grabbed her white fur coat and tugged it around herself. She led him out the backdoor and out onto the streets. They labored around in the glow of the night for a while, awkwardly walking in silence amongst the symphony of honking horns. The longer Peter waited to say anything, the weirder he felt about breaking the silence. Maybe she felt the same way, which is possibly why she never said a thing? He didn’t know, he didn’t understand women, mostly due to the fact he never bothered to be around a single woman that wasn’t his Mother or his Aunt. They never bothered to be around him, but he chose to be around Gwen, and maybe she wanted to be around him too.

“Do you wanna, uh, sit somewhere?” Peter asked her meekly. “I can only imagine that you’re exhausted after that performance.”

“I know a place we can go if you’re willing to go on an adventure.”

“Sure. Yeah, I’m down.” Peter gave her a weak smile as she took his hand in hers and led the way once more. She wore a few simple rings on her perfectly french manicured fingers and a single gold chain bracelet on her thin wrist.

Gwen whisked him away into some abandoned factory, he think he could recognize it from one of the papers his Uncle wrote. In and around the factory was dark, so many places for gunslingers and mobsters to be hiding, at the ready to draw out their Tommy guns and fill him fulla holes. Peter could feel the consuming darkness everywhere, pumping in his veins and beating in his temples angrily, as if his body was making a desperate plea to tuck tail and run to save whatever life left it had in this miserable city, in this melancholy state, in this depressed country and on this planet who was bleeding out on the cement of space just like every other victim of The Goblin. Peter trusted Gwen, so he tried not to be so completely and utterly paranoid like he really was.

She climbed him up to the rooftop through a hatch that opens towards the edge of the roof. To avoid falling off the both of them rolled over into a dirty puddle of melted snow, getting their clothes drenched in the process. Peter frowned at the muddy wet splotches on his already worn for wear pants. Gwen ignored the mess on herself and hoisted herself out of the puddle and further out onto the opposite side of the roof. Peter brushed off some of the melting flakes off his ass and went to go over with her.

“The city is gorgeous from up here, isn’t it?” Gwen asked, smiling at him lovingly.

“Yeah, yeah I guess so.” Peter nodded, not quite paying complete attention on the majesty of the city lights in the night, but more so on the height he found himself at. He wondered if anyone else had a tiny voice that told them to jump after approaching the edge? Peter pulled off his trench coat and threw in onto the ground to create a dry spot on the ground for them to sit in the cold.

“Thank you,” Gwen said as they both took a seat.

He shrugged her off nonchalantly, “No problem.”

Gwen went inside her formally pristine white fur coat and dug out a bottle of red wine, which was all to Peter’s shock. He had an astonished look on his face and asked, “Where in tarnation did you git that thing? How’d you fit that whole thing in there?”

“Guess I just have sticky fingers and big jacket pockets. Don’t ask to many questions, my love.” She said in an aloof manner.

“Well then, I assume you’ve missed the memo that I happen to now be a photographer working for a journal, I think it might be my job to ask too many questions.” Peter chuckled, running his hands back and forth over the soggy knees of his pants and keeping his eyes straight forward.

“No, I heard, I just assumed you wouldn’t go on and make your next little piece about how you, dear, old, gentleman are a drunkard,” Gwen said as she managed to pop the bottle of wine, it caused both of them to jump, but Gwen wasn’t shaken like Peter was. He needed a few seconds to catch his breath, and to do it without getting called out for being a wuss. 

“No- I… uh… yeah, I bet I could make a few good bucks offa royalties for that one, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Gwen nodded for a moment before wrapping her lips around the bottle and taking a swig. She hadn’t thought to grab glasses beforehand, but it’s not like anyone rich or classy was here to judge her for her consumption of adult flavored grape juice. She passed it to Peter who also took a drink, but he gulped down twice around the mouth. “You know,” Gwen started, “You invited me out to talk about… whatever, but not a single piece of dialogue tonight has had anything to do about what’s been going on lately.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right.” Peter shrugged, scooting the glass bottle across the floor, back over to her.

“No, I know I’m right,” Gwen stated matter-of-factly, grabbing the bottle back and looking over the shoulder of her giant white jacket at Peter. “So, are you gonna talk?”

“What do I even have to talk about that would interest you?”

“You’ve been through a lot. ”

“Not really. I’m pretty sure anything I have to talk about wouldn’t interest you much. I really wanna hear about how stuff with that record label is coming along though.”

“Don’t deflect, Peter. You’re better than that.” Gwen sighed, smiling at him sadly.

“I’m not deflecting, I just wanna hear about how you’ve been.”

“Pete, I wasn’t there for you, which makes me… the worst. But I wanna be.” She tilted her head, looking at him.

“I’m fine, Gwen, okay? There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Your Uncle died, Pete.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Peter said defensively, his knees pulled to his vested chest. He took the bottle off the ground where Gwen had left it and took a swig, wiping his chapped lips dry. “I’m dealing with it, okay? I just… don’t want to, or need to talk about, all I need is to see the motherfuckers that did it brought to justice.”

Gwen paused, her red lips in a tight-lipped frown, but she accepted his answer. She needed to be there for him, no matter what, and if this was how he chose to deal with mourning, then she would support him through it. 

So, she told him all about the backstage life of a performer, all about how she’d mysteriously come into good fortune and the expensive gifts she happened to be wearing. She told him all about her family, how she wanted to move out because her father was always just a little bit of an ass, but her mother made it all that much more bearable, and how her little brothers could swing either way on such scale. She told him about her day and even about a mystery man that had captured her heart, (though she spoke very little about him, perhaps to not stir jealousy in Peter but he didn’t care much, as long as she was happy with him.) 

“Tell me about him,” he asked quietly.

She paused for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to break his silence. “He’s on the shorter side at the moment, he’s witty, intelligent, but he never shows it, wise beyond his years but he’s also adorably hopeful, and childish. Also, he can’t take a hint to save his life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. For a smart guy, he’s really dumb.” Peter nodded curtly, and they didn’t say anything else on that topic.

She ended up talking the whole night through while Peter listened. As she spoke he ended up slipping into her lap, where she carded her delicate fingers through his curly hair. His hair was gentle, soft, like a bath of rose petals that washed over hands in slow waves. He had a looser curl that fell almost loose from his head, it could easily be flattened with a straight iron or gel, but it looked better swaying free in the freezing chill of winter.

Just an hour or so before the sun came up, Peter crawled out of her lap and stood up. The formally full bottle of chilled wine was now devoid of any intoxicating liquid. Gwen grabbed it and threw it over the tops of the buildings, watching it soar over the rooftops before it crashed and fractured into a million little pieces in some back alley. Peter scooped his trench coat off the dank rooftop and shrugged it on, leading his dear friend back home.

When he dropped Gwen off at her home, immediately her mother and father raced out the front door to greet her, looking her over with a great deal of concern. Peter watched as they badgered her about where she had been and all that jazz, it was something he wished he had to call his own. Something he could never really have, never again. When the front door closed he was on his way home.

When Peter woke up the next morning and went out on his way, the front page for the Daily Bugle caught his eye. He and Ben got the front page, above the fold even!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pwease follow my tumbly mikeyisanauthor or drop some likes and comments


	7. Spyder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets on his dick true crime shit

At Urich’s apartment, Peter bursts in through the door, yelling, “We made the latest addition, isn’t that- great?” 

Ben sits in his chair, not responding and as Peter looks down he sees the needle, picking it up to inspect it he saw some of the drug still residing inside the barrel. Just then, Ben’s phone rings, and since Ben can’t respond, Peter picks it up for him.

“Hello?” He asked into the cold receiver. 

The voice on the other line says, “Is that you, Spider? It’s The Fly, and I’ve got a hot one for you. The action’s going off at one o'clock in the am at Runie’s import warehouse at pier fifty-seven. Goblin’s goons are picking up a shipment of antiques that went awry. It’s gonna be the usual terms, forty clams if you use it or not. Gotta blow.” 

Peter hangs up the phone, talking to himself. “Spider? What was Urich up to?”

One o’clock at the pier, Montana looks at one of the statues of the Spider God and asks, “Why the hell did Goblin want all this junk?”

“For his personal collection!” Fancy Dan tells him, “He’s got a thing for the Voodoo mumbo jumbo, and all that weird stuff. The Bugle put out an article on this one though, said anyone that touches it dies from some curse or something like that.”

“That’s enough talking. Get the statues loaded.” Kraven growled at them, his pet monkey standing silently on his shoulder and watching everyone down just as his owner did.

Fancy Dan, Ox, and Montana begin to lift the crate up, and as Fancy Dan beings to take a step back, he slips, dropping the crate with a heart-stopping crash. The wood pieces splintered, and the top of the crate flew off onto the floor and the hay, meant to protect the priceless artifact inside was sent flying throughout the air to land on the hard, solid concrete floor. The Spider God statue had shattered into a million pieces! Pieces of the ancient statue were mixed in with the hay, and from inside the statue, a swarm of thousands, if not millions, of spiders crawled out. They all swarmed around Dan, covering the entirety of his large body in a thin layer of black, coarse, fur.

“Get em’ off! Get em’ off!” Dan screams out with inhuman terror in his eyes. ”They’re biting me!”

Kraven sprints to grab a hose to wash Dan off, but when Montana takes a closer look he yells, “He’s dead! Those spiders killed Dan!”

And while all this is happening, Peter is watching from the rafters. He felt his heart pounding in his chest and his pulse throbbing in his temple as he watched Dan die. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, not until he felt eight, tiny, hairy legs crawling over the back of his hand he’d been gripping the rails tight with. It bit him. He has to beg himself not to scream, but it’s the worst pain he’d ever felt. The spider reared up again and bit him for the second time. His face contorted in pain as he took shallow, labored breaths as everything around him begun to fade.

When things came back into focus, the Spider God sat before him, with him in her web, and he was stark naked. Her legs were almost human but bent and misshapen in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Multiple human legs wrapped together under a thin lace of pallor skin to form limbs. In the sparsely placed, but thickly grown fur had up of many arms that twitched and writhed slowly like a mass grave in a thunderstorm. Her jaw hung slack, letting all of her arm length fangs show. Some of her salivae dripped down onto his chest, it was warm and sticky, and she was so close. Her mouth stunk of sulfur, rotting flesh, and green pennies. Her face was just as pale, and almost skin like her legs, she had two large eyes that were the size of a child, and glowing red, and a tattoo of a spider on her forehead.

Her voice had a deep, resonant voice that rocked inside his chest. “Why do you tremble so? Our bites only bring death to those of wicked intentions, but you’re so pure. Naively innocent in a world already designed to bring you anguish.” She said, her words said lowly like a whisper but ringing like pots and pans and gunshots in his ears. “For you, there will be a greater torment, the curse of power and the curse of responsibility. You will get to know this, and you will get to know me too, my pet. As you owe the greatest debt a man can owe, boy.”

She moved closer, her breath feeling like the sun on his clammy skin. "You owe your life, your soul, to me now, boy."

Peter blacks out after hearing those words and he finds himself opening his eyes, looking up, he found himself hanging upside down, and he whimpers to himself, “Oh god!” Because when he moves he can feel the spider’s web covering him. He pulls the webbing off of himself and he climbs up, and then he senses something, his whole body feeling off, skin crawling, and feeling maybe an inch or two taller? A few moments later, he jumps from the ledge and easily moves from beam to beam until he lands on the floor. He looks back up at the height that he’d come from and then at his hands, stating simply, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

The next morning Urich grabs his things and heads over to Osborn Enterprise, and it wasn’t hard to find because that piece of garbage, The Goblin, thinks he’s untouchable. Urich walks up to the door and one of the guards tells Urich, “You’ll be seen in five minutes. Next time, make a goddamn appointment.” Urich waits the time without complaint, and as he walks into Norman’s office he looks at all the taxidermied animal heads hanging on the walls.

“What do you want?” Norman asks lowly, looking over the top of his interlaced fingers, his elbows resting easily atop his pristine desk. “I pay you to stay out of my hair, not show up looking like a hobo. It’s bad for my image.”

“I’m going to assume that you all heard about the fire the other night.”

“Yes, we did. Some drunk drops a cigarette and-” 

Urich holds up a photo of Fancy Dan, telling him, “Just in case you didn’t see this, a clear shot of Fancy Dan at the scene.”

Norman lets out a hearty laugh. “Fancy Dan doesn’t work for me, just so you know. You’re going to need better plans if you want to blackmail me.”

Urich then says, “I got plenty to take you, and your entire freak-show down!”

Norman takes another look at the photograph. “This is true. I’m a man that accepts facts over ideals. I will buy the snapshot this time. I know a man like you has needs, but you should take care not to push too far.” 

Montana hands Urich a wad of cash. “There’s fifty skins to keep you snowed up for Christmas. Now scram.”

Just then there’s a loud crash, and a man in black jumps through Norman’s window, kicking Kraven across to the ground, moving with such agility, taking everyone before stopping in front of Norman’s desk. 

“I’m here to give you a message! It all stops here! The extortion, the drugs, the prostitution, the protection rackets! All of it!”

Norman gives another laugh, telling Montana to shoot, but as he takes out his gun, the man shoots out a web from his wrist, pinning him down! He then grabs Norman, lifts him out of his chair.

“What are you gonna do? Beat me up? Arrest me? The only way to stop me is to kill me! Can you do that?” Norman asks, face contorted into a snarl.

The man tried to say something, but his eyes wandered and he notices Urich’s photo, and then he stares directly at Urich. Urich runs out of the building and into the streets, but before he can get farther the man in black jumps in front of him and then grabs Urich by the jacket, shouting, “How could you?! How could you be working for Goblin and taking his filthy money? You’re a drunk and a junkie, and he bought you! He bought you like a damn dog!” The man lets go.

That voice sounded familiar to Ben… it was… “Peter? Wait! Let me explain!”

Peter turns and makes his escape, telling Urich as he ran, “Just stay away from me! I never wanna see your lying ass again!”

As Peter runs down the alley, Norman and his goons run-up shooting. But Peter effortlessly dodges the light they try to put in him, and jumps up to the wall and onto the rooftops. Once the firing stops, Norman looks at Urich, telling him, “You still here? You use those connections of yours to find out who that lunatic in the mask is, and earn yourself a nice bonus.” 

Urich gets up, grabbing the money he was given and throws it in Norman’s face. “I don’t work for you anymore. I don’t want your money! This thing that we had here is finished.” He picks up his hat and begins to walk off. 

And Norman says, “Now that sounds like a man with nothing to lose. A man with nothing to lose is very, very dangerous.”

Montana then asks, “Should I pop him?”

“Not yet. We need to know where he’s keeping those files. Urich may think he has the upper hand, but The Goblin always gets two steps ahead.”

Later that night, Urich pours himself a glass, calling Betty over the phone and asking her to put him through to Jonah, and a few seconds later Jonah picks up.

“What? What do you want?” He asks in his almost classic, gruff voice that could be heard from miles away.

“I got a big one, Jonah, this is Pulitzer material. It’s gonna blow the whole damn town apart.” 

“I don’t have time for games! What’s the story, Urich?” Jonah demanded.

“The Goblin. I could get you The Goblin.” 

“Murder! Are you serious?” Jonah asks incredulously. 

“I am dead serious. I have it all, names, dates, photographs. I could put him in the frame for dozens of murders all over New York.”

Jonah asks, “Where are you?” Urich tells him that he’s in his apartment and Jonah tells him, “If you really have what you say, you cannot be on the street with that! Just stay right there, and I’ll be over.”

Urich looks over at his defeated self in the mirror, telling himself, “Yeah, they’re gonna make em’ weep.” He hangs up and he holds his glass. “I’m doing the right thing. Tonight, I’m burying the Spider, taking back my life.”

After a while, there’s a knock at Urich’s door, and as Urich opens it. He sees a gun pointed right at him, and it goes off.

Also at this time, back at Peter’s apartment, he goes through Uncle Benjamin’s old war chest. Peter’s Uncle had been one of the only black pilots during the war, and that made him a hero, at least to the people he wasn’t shooting at. Peter takes out Ben’s old uniform, and he begins to stitch together a mask, thinking about what his Uncle would use to say, “Even though I was awarded medals, I never felt like I was a hero.” His Uncle hid his uniform because he was ashamed of it, because the war that he fought was not just.

Peter grabs one last thing from the trunk, Uncle Benjamin’s ol’ gun. And over at Urich’s apartment, Jonah picks up the phone, stating, voice a little raspier than usual, “It’s done, the Spider is dead.”

But at that exact moment, Peter is standing on the rooftop, saying “This is it, Goblin. Here comes The Spider!”

Later, as Peter made his way to Urich’s apartment, he told himself that he didn’t believe in magic, only scientific fact, but now he could shoot silk from his wrists. There has to be a scientific explanation for all of this! But, whatever it is, it will be used to bring The Goblin down, and Urich is going to help whether he likes it or not. Peter then climbs into Urich’s apartment.

“I know you’re in here. We needa talk.” Peter spoke, but as he looks at the floor, he sees Urich has been shot to death. Blood was spilt all over his disgusting carpet, congealing and sinking in deep into the rug. He runs toward him, his mentor, screaming to himself, “No! No, no, no! Not again! Please God, whoever is above, not again!”


	8. At The Scene of The Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sad boy hours for Peter as he has lost another father figure lmao oof

Peter sits outside of Urich’s apartment as the police go over the scene. The two detectives inside begin to talk to one another, quietly.

One asks, “How are we going to spin this? Could we all just pin it on the kid?”

“Nah, he’s the one who called it in. The DA won’t buy it. Just looks like there’s gonna be another unsolved case.” The other one says. “Urich had a monkey on his back though, cocaine, heroin, could’ve gotten into a scrabble with one of his dealers. Maybe he gave the wrong person a bad write up in The Bugle. Who’s gonna care?”

The house dicks tell Peter that he’s free to go and if there’s anyone that he can think of as to who may have done this, be sure to let them know. In Peter’s mind, he knows, he knows who it was. It was The Goblin. He may not know who pulled the trigger, but it was The Goblin. Peter knows this. 

The next morning, in Norman’s office, he shreds the morning paper. “You came to me with this?! They didn’t call Urich The Spider for nothing! He’s been collecting on us for years, and this is all you could find? It’s confetti! This is toilet paper!” 

As Kraven holds Jonah against the wall, he cries, “That’s all he had! The place was turned upside down! There was nothing else!” 

Norman takes his gun out, pointing it against Jonah’s temple, telling him, “If you’re going to hold out on me…”

“I swear, Mr. Osborn!” Jonah cries, and Norman sighs, putting his gun back into his holster.

“Get that sorry carcass out of my office. He has an editorial to write.” Kraven lets Jonah go, and as he begins to run out of Norman’s office, tail between his shivering legs, Norman asks, “Who in this town would Urich have trusted most?”

Back on the streets, Peter walks down the sidewalk when Felicia’s bouncer calls out to him. Peter stops and the bouncer says, “The lady has been informed of the passing of your mutual friend. She would like to express her condolences personally. Now, if you would.” The bouncer directs Peter where to go to be with Black Cat, but at that time, Ox just so happens to be getting a drink, and he happens to see the whole thing. 

Peter walks into Felicia’s dark office, and before he could say a word Felicia tells him, “I know what you thought of Urich before he passed. He called me the night before. He told me about the drugs, and the money he was getting from The Goblin. Ben was no saint, and I would know. But he was a better man than we all thought.” She sniffled a little but grit her teeth and attempted a smile. “He was very fond of you, you know? What you don’t know was that he was willing to risk it all and expose The Goblin, that’s why he’s dead.” Felicia takes off her glasses, showing that her makeup had been running and she says. “And it’s all because of you.”

She turns to her safe, saying, “Urich held no secret from me, in this safe are the files on The Goblin. All of his activities, his associates, names, dates, photographs. Everything. Urich said that if anything were to happen to him, Peter would know what to do with them.”

Peter takes the bag solemnly. “What should I do?” He asks is a raspy, tear stricken tone. “Take it to The Bugle?”

“No, that place is the last place you should take those files! Don’t show them to Jonah, don’t show them to anybody! Take them, and use them. Ben said that you would know-how.” She looked up at him, as he now almost towered over everyone, her red eyes narrowed and her brows drawn together. 

Peter turns and goes to leave, but he stills for a moment, guilt grew as the only flora in the wasteland of loss in his heart. “If I had known what would’ve happened, I would never have pushed him.” He says, just barely above a whisper to Felicia.

“Just leave.”

Later that night, Peter takes the files, spreading them across his disgusting, uncomfortable bed, thinking that if Urich had just done something, maybe he and Uncle Benjamin would still be alive. Just then, Auntie May walks in.

“Peter, is there anything I can do for you?” She asks, empathy running course in her voice. “I know that Mr. Urich and you were close.”

Peter stops her, telling her, “Urich was a liar and a coward.” His face scrunched up into an agitated mess, tears felt like the bit his eyes, but they never came out, they never did.

“I may have only met the man once, but I’m a damn good judge of character.” She said, storming into his room to tell Peter how it was. “I may not know what he did, or didn’t do, but he did right by you. Now it’s time for you to do right by Urich.”

The following day, at the Calvary Cemetery, Urich’s services are held in the snowy graveyard, and everyone close to Urich is there. Aunt May, Jonah, Betty, Felicia, even Gwen, who held his hand during the service to comfort him. She tried to console him, which was nice of her, Peter knew, but he didn’t need it. He wasn’t weak and this was far from his first funeral this year. As Peter turns to leave, Jonah stops him.

“It was a tragic loss, and it was upsetting to find out the way we all did. You and Urich were close the past few weeks. Did he… leave you anything?” Peter begins to feel that sense from before, tingles down his spine like his skin wants to crawl right on off his body like something is horribly wrong. Jonah goes on, “Urich was working on an assignment, an undercover thing. Did he mention any of that to you?”

“No,” Peter tells Jonah. “He was a very private person. Right, well, I’m gonna be… heading off to college, I suppose. Thank you for my time at The Bugle, sir.” Peter said, barely scraping by with an excuse to escape the situation. 

“Forget it. Be sure to stay in touch. If you think of anything, give me a call.”

As Peter leaves, he thinks of Felicia, thinking that she was right, he can’t even trust Jonah anymore. This is something he has to do alone.

Later that night, Peter jumps across the rooftops, telling himself that it all made sense now, getting bit by the spider, what it did to him. There’s a purpose to it, every night he’s gotta go out and hit The Goblin (and those America First bastards on the way,) where it hurts. Using Urich’s files he goes to many of The Goblin’s operations, taking out two-bit gangsters the hoodlums that he associates with. The Spider is going to be everywhere, for as long as it takes, and each time, these men will be left with a calling card, knowing that he was there. 

The next morning, Norman slams down the morning paper down with the headline, “Who is The Spider? Terror on the streets? Enough! Enough of this, I want that freak’s head in a jar, right here on my desk!” Some of Norman’s associates begin to talk, and he tells them, “That’s well and good, but you better make it happen soon. This- this “Spider-Man” put his filthy little hands on me, and that should’ve never happened. We’ll deal with him, because I claim to have this city under lock and key, and I do, the cops, the mayor, the port authority, the unions, even The Bugle.”

“That’s impressive.” the associates tell him, “Never would’ve thought that Jameson would’ve rolled over. But Spider-Man, you have one week or we’ll be looking to protection from elsewhere.” 

Norman slams his fists into his desk, screaming, “The Spider knows too much, he can’t be guessing! He either has those files from Urich or he’s being tipped off. Either way, it has to be that Parker kid, or Felicia. She was sweet of Urich before he fell apart.” 

Ox asks, “Felicia Hardy? I saw the kid in The Black Cat, going up to Hardy’s private buduaar.” 

Norman looks at him. “You saw when- when did you see this?!”

Ox thinks about it for a moment, “It was maybe the day after Urich was rubbed out? Maybe?” 

Norman grits his teeth, refraining from hitting Ox over the face with something heavy. “Thank you. Thank you, for sharing that information with me! Now get Parker here, it’s time to clean house.”

Later that same evening, Peter sits high above the ground, atop a building, reading aloud the article from The Bugle. “This gun-toned menace is no robin-hood, he robs from the rich and poor alike.” Peter throws the paper to the wind. “Bha! Yeah, okay, Jonah. It’s time to explain what turns a man of ‘grit and integrity’ into a spineless mouthpiece for The Goblin.” 

Peter makes his way over to Jonah’s office, and as he opens the window he notices that everything is so dark. Peter crawls in.

He hears a voice, which weekly asks, “Are you here to kill me too?” Before Peter can realize it, he grabs his gun, but Jonah has already been shot, several times. Jonah whispers, “It must be open season for me.” 

Peter lowers his gun. “Did The Goblin do this? What did you have on him?” 

“I’m a master of disguise, you wouldn’t believe your…” But before he could finish, he lets out his final breath and slumps over.

Just then, the police burst through the door with a loud bang, and Peter shouts, “It was a setup!”

He quickly turns back and launches himself out the window with the officers running over and opening fire, hitting him in the arm. As Peter makes his escape, he thinks, maybe it wasn’t a setup, Jonah thought that he was there to kill him! Could this be any worse? As Peter turns on the lights to his hideout, he sees the wound.

“Did… did I get shot?” Peter asks himself in complete and utter shock, just now feeling the sticky warmth that started to spread underneath his sleeve. “I didn’t even feel it… that bullet could’ve gone through my head…”

Peter sits down, after wrapping his arm in some old fabric he had laying around, the bullet had gone through, so he supposed he was safe from having to find and sterilize a pair of pliers. He thinks to himself that he must be missing. Why did The Goblin make the old goat leg Jonah sell out? Peter flips open the files to give them a look through, and there’s Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven the Hunter, an animal trainer from Russian, Adrian Toomes, aka, The Vulture, Geek of an Unknown origin. As Peter begins to turn the page to the next, he stares. This must be it.

And later, at the morgue, he sneaks in, pulling the sheet out that was covering Jonah. He places a hand on Jonah’s face and gives it a light squeeze and then pulls back. What Peter finds, is that Jonah’s face has shifted, like a mushy mold, or a paste. This means, what he had thought was right, that there was another that Urich had never mentioned. Demetri Smetikov, he was also known as The Chameleon, half-brother of Kraven. He had the ability to mold his face into a perfect imitation of any subject, it almost reminded him of some other half-brother he knew of. This, Peter would wager, was his greatest performance yet. This all leaves Peter with one question, what happened to the real Jonah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pwease follow my tumblr mikeyisanauthor and leave me hate anon or drop a comment about how much u wish that i did something else other than what i did


	9. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man-Ace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petey aboutta get on his neighborhood menace shits and goes after the goblin

At Norman’s office, Kraven pokes Jonah with a stick through a cage. “You stink worse than a tiger.” Kraven tells him, “You stink of fear. A tiger senses this, makes them hungry.”

“Don’t worry, Jonah, you won’t have to be in discomfort for too much longer.” Just then, there’s a shuffle from behind, and Norman says, “Ah! And how lovely Felicia Hardy is here to join us! We’re almost ready to begin our festivities. We’re just waiting on one more guest to be summoned.”

Across town, there’s a knock on Peter’s bedroom door, May. Lately, she has been worried for him an awful lot. It seems that the people they love the most end up dropping like flies, and she knows how hard it’s been on her without Ben, and she can’t imagine what it’s like for Peter to have up and lost two father figures and his mother in such a short period. All of that coupled with the fact she hasn’t seen him in forever, at the funeral for Mr. Urich he’d looked… taller, and so, so much more tired. May feels like she’s losing her Nephew to the Big Apple, and that was just not about to happen on her watch.

“Peter?” She asks through the door. Receiving no response she walks in and up above her, The Vulture is watching, with his mouth open. He begins to reach out.

As The Vulture’s mouth gets wider, he begins to hiss, he jumps down onto May, pinning her down onto the ground. 

“Your husband had more meat on him, he was delicious!” The bald headed, the scrawny man wrapped his malnourished fingers around her neck and squeezed, but the door opened, and there Peter stood.

“Let. Her. Go.” Peter tells him in a deep, menacing tone, his gloved fingers dancing just beside his thigh. 

The Vulture looks back, surprised. “The Spider-Man! How could he be so quick? Fast enough to stop me from snapping her neck?” His scratchy, nasally voice filling the dark bedroom. 

“No, prolly not.” Peter whips out his gun and points it at The Vulture. May pleads with him. She begs to him to not to do it, not shoot him! But Peter remembers back to what he had done to his Uncle and he begins to fire! Peter pulls the trigger three times, filling The Vulture’s chest full of the lowlight in the room and the rug full of blood. May gets up.

“You killed him!” She yelled shrily into his masked face, “You killed an unarmed man! Just who do you think you are!”

“He was going to kill you!” 

“I’ve read that you shoot webs! Why didn’t you just use one of those!” Peter tries to say that he was going to kill her again, but she says, “Yes, you already said that! Do you want me to thank you? Is that what you want? The pages were right about you. You think you’re above the law? Well, let me say that there is nothing without the rules of behavior, young man, and I don’t wanna live in a world with people killing each other like animals! Do you hear me, young man? I won’t have it!” She holds out her hand, telling him, “Give me the gun.”

Peter than looks at it. “I’m sorry.” He says, sounding empty, and hollow inside. He leaves.

Following the last bit of Urich’s files, Peter heads into the meatpacking district, where Urich said The Goblin’s torture house was located. If Jonah is alive, he has to be there. Peter rips the top of the window off and he climbs down in.

Peter hears Norman ask, “What am I gonna do for you?”

“You can start with an apology,” Felicia told him, “And then you can have one of your lackeys call me a cab.”

Norman laughed. “I admire your bravado, but it won’t do you any good. Jameson has been calling hell and damnation on me all week.”

“Wait… you were just…” 

“Shocked?” Norman stifles another hardy laugh, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Oh, wait. That’s right, Jameson was shot a few hours back by The Spider. I would know, I have informants at city hall, but how would you know? Unless The Spider is reporting to you, is that it, Miss Hardy? Did you send him to kill Jonah?”

Felicia leers at him, “You were the one who sent Jonah to kill Urich. You think that you’re so smart? Yeah, I read Urich’s files and I kept them under your nose at The Black Cat! The day that he was killed, he planned on spilling everything to The Bugle. I told him he was crazy, but he wasn’t listening! I was there when Urich opened the door and was gunned down! I had taken the files and left through the fire escape! The first chance that I got I went to Jonah’s office, personally. Unlike you, I don’t hire anyone to do all of my dirty work, I do it myself. I shot him where he sat, and I know damn well that I didn’t miss.” Felicia looks back at Norman. “What are you planning here? If it wasn’t Jonah that I shot, then who the hell was it?”

“Unfortunately for you, it was one of my own men.” 

Kraven then shouts, “My idiot half-brother was rubbed out by a woman?”

Norman grabs Felicia, telling her “I regret this, because I truly do value our relationship, but The Chameleon was one of our own, we can not let this go unpunished.”

Felicia swiped at Norman’s face, cutting him open and allowing his blood to stripe his cheek. “Don’t you dare touch me! I told you once before to never put your hands on me!”

Norman gets back up. “So you did. I was going to make this quick and painless, but you always gotta do something to make me mad! You know what happens when I’m mad?” Norman grabs her again, dragging her closer to the container of spiders. “Dames like you have a thing about spiders? Don’t they? Well, take a close look, because you’re going to be getting real cozy with them in about a minute. Just as soon as The Vulture gets back with that Parker kid!”

Just then Peter calls out, his voice echoing in the mostly empty space, “The Vulture sends his apologies, he’s unavoidably detained!” Peter jumps down, webbing up Montana.

“No! The Spider belongs to me!” Kraven shouts, taking out his gun. He begins to open fire, having his monkey climb up and scratch at Peter’s mask. As the monkey tries, Peter grabs a pipe.

“No one is gonna come after me and my family again!” Peter yells, smashing the pipe across Ox’s face, “This time, the blood’ll be on my hands!”

Kraven shoots one more time, but in between them all, Peter grabs the monkey, throwing it at him, making him shoot the blood-thirsty creature. Kraven stumbles. 

“No…” He mutters softly, looking at his now deceased, beloved pet, “You’re gonna pay for that!”

Peter gets back up, grabbing another pipe, with a smirk underneath the black mask, “And here I thought you didn’t have a heart!” And he swings, the pipe crashing across Kraven’s mouth.

Norman pulls a lever, grinning, “It’s feeding time!” 

And the thin barrier separating Jonah from the tiger begins to open. The gorgeous, white tiger, who looked just a tad underfed charged at Jonah. Before it could sink its fist sized incisors into Jonah’s flesh, Peter jumps up and grabs onto it.

“C’ mon! You don’t wanna eat an old man! He taste like Saltine Wafers and black licorice. And I don’t think that’s the recommended diet for big ladies like you!” Peter webbed the tiger’s mouth shut. He rushes over to Jonah, snapping the chains that held him in place. “We need to hurry!”

“Forget it! Go, help your girlfriend!” Jonah yelled, which confused Peter a second, but after eliminating the only other lady in the room in his head he quickly recognized that he meant Felicia, not the tiger. Now that he thinks about it, he would probably be a very bad tigers’ boyfriend. After all, he did just call her fat, which was incredibly rude! He should apologize. Maybe buy her some flowers? Meat in the shape of chocolates?

Peter looks back, seeing Norman holding a gun to Felicia’s head. “If you follow, she’s dead!” He yells, exiting the building out of a hatch.

Peter jumps over the box, just as Kraven starts to get up. He starts to mutter, “You mother-” but before he could finish, Peter kicks him into the container of spiders.

“I’m sorry if you were trying to surrender!” Peter says, the glass shatters into a million pieces. As the spiders begin to crawl all over Kraven, he screams, begging for God’s mercy as he too is eaten alive by the curse.

In the sewers below, Norman is pushing along Felicia. 

“It’s over Norman, you’re finished! Do you really believe that your pals in city hall are gonna bail you out after this one? They’re gonna be coming after you, Norman. Every bent cop and politician, every man, woman, and child you ever paid off, will be out to shut you up! You’re a dead man! Every time you turn your back on someone, you’re gonna be waiting for a bullet or a blade!”

“Shut up, you hear me? …Wha-?” Norman looks up to see a shadow.

“What, are you afraid of shadows now?” The figure shadow asked. They jumped down onto Norman, revealing the now infamous, Spider. Norman, pushed to the ground with Peter’s weight dropped his gun. It fell beside the sewer water making a soft clunk noise as it splashed into a puddle of that disgusting, sluggy, brown liquid. Peter yells for Felicia to run.

“Is this it?” Norman asked him, “The itsy-bitsy Spider is going to get the drop on the Big Bad Wolf? But, before we pull the curtain down, let’s see who’s underneath there.” Norman quickly makes a grab at Peter’s mask, pulling the leather and cloth off the boy’s face, revealing caramel skin and messed, loose brown curls. 

Peter than does the same. Ripping away at Norman’s skin, he begins to ask disgustedly, “What the hell?” Underneath a fake face, made out of layers of some peculiar, plastic material, is a deformed Green Goblin.

“How about that?” Norman asks him with a crooked smile, “It is Urich’s punk. What’s the matter with you kid? Never been to a freakshow before?”

“… That’s why they call you The Goblin,” Peter whispers to himself. He couldn’t stop staring at all the scales that made up his almost reptilian-like green face, his eyes a complete yellow color, like a feral cat’s.

Norman reaches for his gun slowly, fingertips barely touching, “The other kids used to throw stones at me! All my life. Now, when they say my name, all I hear is respect. And the few, the very privileged to have seen this face, they know one of them is going to do it. So, how about it? I can see it in your eyes. You got what it takes? You got enough hate for me. Kill me, Peter, be a hero, boy!”

Peter could easily reach for the gun and end his life. He could overpower The Goblin, without a doubt he could do it, but Peter thinks back to all the death that he has found, the deaths he’d caused, and what May said about not wanting to live in a world where they kill each other like animals. He releases his hands from Norman’s collar, standing up.

“Nah. Nah! The Goblin is gonna stand trial for everything!” 

Norman quickly grabs the gun and stood up, pointing it at Peter. “They’re gonna put me in the courtroom. They won’t get a trial, they’ll get a freakshow! Sorry, kid, but you had your chance! No more freakshows.”

As Norman begins to pull the trigger, Peter shoots a web, clogging the barrel of the gun, and causing it to backfire. The gun popped off in Norman’s hand, and he shouts, “No one’s gonna put me in a changer! No one!”

Norman tries to crawl away, but Peter could easily keep up with him. “It’s all over now, there’s nowhere else to run.” Norman finally gets to his feet and then he sees a large person blocking his path. Kraven shuffles out, trying to say something, but as Kraven grabs him, the two, along with the spiders, fell into the sewer water. Norman screams for Kraven to get the hell away from him. While the spiders eat him too, Peter watches, silently, eyes filled with disgusted, embittered tears that would never fall.


	10. Time Just So Happens to Pass

Two months go by and it’s mid-January now. America joined the war effort December seventh after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. There’s anxiety running in the blood of the streets, but for now things are alright. Felicia lounges in her Boudoir, reading the headlines. Corruption charges are to be brought up against seventeen high ranking police officials, politicians, including the former New York mayor, James “Jimmy” Stryder, all of this thanks to the information gathered by the late Ben Urich, who’s courage and dedication to reporting brought integrity to all walks of life. 

Some of Felicia’s cats began to meow and hiss as a figure climbed their way into the windowsill. Peter. “Why do you always read the paper out loud when you’re alone?” 

“Well, I’m not alone, aren’t I? And take off that ridiculous mask. Why are you here, Peter?”

Peter slips the mask off of his face, and sighed, “I just can’t get it out of my head. What The Goblin said to you about your relationship.” Felicia turns away. “Did you leave Ben Urich… for him?”

“What happened to Ben and I was a long and complicated road. It’s none of your business.”

Peter nodded, reaching into his trench coat, pulling out a file, “There’s one last thing I found in Ben’s papers, I thought you should have it.” Felicia takes the paper and opens it up to find a picture of her and Ben, from a long time ago, from when they were still young, the love wasn’t ever in past tense for them despite what anyone else might think. And when she looks back up, that sly, Spider- Man is gone.

Though the long winter isn’t completely gone, her icy grasp on the city has retreated for now, snow melting and icicles dropping down and melting into puddles alongside the road. With winter’s release, The Goblin and his goons are all either dead or locked far away in a prison cell, Rosevelt’s in the White House, and Jay Jonah Jameson is once again sounding and declaring liberty and equality from every newsstand in New York. Auntie May was still on her soapbox, fighting the good fight for the rights of the common people. The monsters are always with us, but that’s okay because there will always be the good guys too. In the end, when it’s all said and done, they always win.

This was the first win Peter could ever count himself down for, he always seemed to have bad luck, especially recently. For the first time in just four months, under a year, his life has slowed down just enough for him to grasp hold and think. With the exception of patrol, he had nothing really, no job, no degree. So, he dug out the shoes and sat them on the bed, right beside his camera. They looked so much older than he’d remember, and so much more worn down, with his finger he traced the line where the stitching barely held the bottoms on. Would they even still fit him if he tried them on? Or would they rip right off? His camera looked a little off too, like if he went to take a picture it would go snap and crumble apart as ash in his too strong hands. He seemed to have control over these powers of his but that was all a facade, and the truth was he had no clue how far any of this could go. 

“Peter, dear? Dinner is ready.” May called, causing him to jump out of his thoughts and toss both the camera and the shoes back from where he’d pulled them out, walking out of his room and into the little place they called a kitchen.

At the Parker family table, there had been, as of recent events, was always an empty, left over, and ignored third chair, and tonight was no different, though the other two chairs were also filled. It was hard to ignore it, and May tried to, but Peter always stared at it as a reminder, his curse was responsibility, and if all of this was anyone’s fault, it was his. Because he caused this he was the one who had to make it better, because his curse was also power, and if he had power to fix what was wrong in the world, and didn’t, didn’t it make him responsible?

May had placed down a platter in front of Peter, along with silverware they’d inherited from better times than these. The plate wasn’t full, but by no means did they have the money like others did to spend on a grand meal. They never had that sort of capital, so they made do, like they always did, and ate in relative silence.

“Peter?” May asked after clearing her throat, Peter lifted his head to look at her. “I’ve called your name a few times now. Are you okay, Peter?”

“Oh yes, I’m fine May, just a bit tired.

“Good. You better not be going deaf on me, you’re too young for that.” May nodded with a set certainess about her aging features. She too looked so much more worn then he might’ve recalled a few months ago, when he was younger, and certainly much more naive. In love with the world of black and white, sweet tea, and pretty stage tunes, everything before New York suddenly came into a rose tinted focus. Tightly curled grey hairs sprouting out of the maintained black bun he’d known since time began, wrinkles in the once ironed silk that was her face, who knows, maybe if he goes to look in the mirror a much different man would be staring back at him. Maybe when he went to look he’d see a man who’d gone and grown up, a man, who has long since left the world of childish fantasies and idealistic pipedreams and instead has become his responsibilities and the power he has to take care of them.

“It’s been such a long time since we’ve sat down to have a family dinner Peter, I could swear you’ve grown a head or two.” May rambled to herself a little. “I could also say that you’ve matured, you’re getting older definitely, and when you get older you gain responsibilities, and you have a responsibility to yourself to make sure that you don’t end up in the wrong crowd. So, if you see that Spider-Fellow, I want you to tuck tail and turn in the other direction.”

“Yes, of course.” Peter nodded. He could never tell her know the truth, not after he’d killed a man and she bore witness to the crime. It was a crime after all, murder in cold blood, and there was no amount of retribution he could put himself through for any man, woman, child, or god to forgive such an act. Auntie May would burn him at the stake, his Uncle would be disappointed in him, and his Momma would watch from the skies above with pity and joy. He didn’t even know what Gwen would begin to think about him.

“How is the search for work going?” Peter asked after clearing his voice of the growing pit in his stomach.

“The Bowery Welfare Center actually agreed to hire me full time!” May said cheerfully.

“Murder! That’s great, it’s a shame we didn’t get to celebrate earlier.”

“It is, Peter, it really is.” May spoke softly, thinking for a moment before speaking up again. “Y’know, I think you should start looking back into you options. Of course I love you no matter what you do, what you choose to do with your life, but I think maybe you should check out some schools around here, you know you could score a very fancy job with a nice degree.”

“I’ll look, I have some mail to get through.”

“Okay, dear.” May got up from her empty plate at the table, placing a loving kiss on his cheek, heading off to bed for the night. Peter gathered the two dishes and the two sets of silverware, cleaning them and setting them away in the cabinets and drawers where they belonged.

On the stand beside the door, a small pile had collected up belonging to Peter. Some of the letters had dust on them, so he wiped his hands dry with the dirty dish towel, tossing it on the rotting counter and going to check them. There had to be at least six or nine letters, the return addresses all belonging to the Stark Building, the sender being the owner of the business himself. He didn’t grab his letter opener, and instead opted to take the letters and throw them into some drawer and toss on his coat.

When Peter arrived he didn’t bother with trying to find a black enterance or a black waiting room, he threw the front door open and stormed inside. White faces turned to see him walk with purpose into their space and twist their faces up in disgust like he was tainting their air. He stood right at the secretary’s desk, where he almost towered over the lady due to his new height.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Don’t need one, Miss, could you call Mr. Stark and tell him I’m coming down to his office?”

“I’m sorry, you do realize that you can’t just walk in here and demand to speak with the founder of the company! It doesn’t work like that!”

“Try me, ma’am.” Peter said, walking away, leaving everyone to stare at the empty spot his presence had filled just a moment ago.

Peter swung the door open to the room he knew to be Howard’s and slammed it shut in the faces of guards who embarrassed themselves trying to arrest him. Howard looked up at him, the phone still to his ear and Peter promptly sat down in the chair in front of his desk. Howard slowly placed the phone back down.

“I wasn’t expecting you here anytime soon.”

“Me neither.”

“May I ask to why I am receiving this visit?”

“You offered me a job here.”

“And I assume you’re here to turn me down officially Mr. Parker?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Sir, I know you know about my current unemployment after everything that’s been going on at The Bugle, so I’m in the market for a job, I didn’t have to come to you but I’ve decided it might be a good use of my time, considering you’re in such obvious need of help.”

“How do you know that I need your help? How do you know that I haven’t found someone to fill the place I asked you to fill originally?” Howard asked incredulously. 

“Because, if you didn’t, I wouldn’t have even made it to your office before you turned me down, and you said it yourself, I’m just as, if not smarter than you. And it would be a shame if any of your competitors got a hold of such a gold mine of potential like me.”

Howard’s face scrunched up as he thought. Peter had backed him into a corner because he was right, Howard did need him, especially now. “You’ve certainly got me backed into a corner don’t you, Mr. Parker? You’ll make a great businessman.”

“I’m not a businessman, I’m a scientist, occasionally a photographer or a dick, sir. When do I start?”

“Next week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is anyone even reading this shit?


	11. Playin Doctor With The Boys

ext week.”

Chapter Eleven - Playing Doctor With the Boys:

Peter is more or less unsure of what one wears on their first day as the assistant scientist to the CEO, so he and Gwen concluded that maybe his old Sunday clothes would do. That, or she was quite the convincer and took personal pleasure in seeing not-so-little-anymore boys dressed up all nice. While they were quite nowhere near each other, houses halfway across town, in the alley right beside the building itself she tucked his tie straight, and gave him a kiss on the cheek, assuring him it was all for good luck. Even though she was there, the alley’s deep chill got his blood pumping faster, or maybe she helped along his heart palpitations? Who’s to say? Peter blushed regardless if was for “good luck” or not, and tried to scrub the lipstick smudge off as best he could with the back of his hand. Gwen scattered off in the opposite direction as he headed for the front doors.

Peter arrived in the lab a tad frazzled after getting lost a few times over, having no one to guide him around and show him which lab they were to be working in. When he pushed open the metal doors, Howard and an older gentlemen are already fast at work.

“Well, look who finally arrived,” Howard said vituperatively at his tardy younger brother, “Doctor Ekstine, this is my… younger brother Peter.”

“I might’ve got here faster if someone actually told me where the actual lab was,” Peter spoke through his teeth turning to the Doctor, shaking his hand, “Pleasure to meet you, Doctor.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Parker. Mr. Stark has been telling what the prodigy you are.”

“Well, isn’t that kind of him? Now, as I understand it this project is to remain a secret, yes?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Parker, if this were to get into enemy hands, there’s no telling what might happen.” Howard scoffed.

“Is it supposed to remain a secret to those who are working on it?” The doctor and his older brother both paused for a moment, confused. “Howard, does whoever overseeing this project even know that you’ve somehow convinced me to work on this, whatever it is?”

“They’ll find out soon enough.” Howard waved his hand in the air dismissively. 

“Mr. Stark, do you mind filling in your brother?” Dr. Erskine said, deflating, turning around to the desk he’d been working at before Peter had walked in on them. Peter assumed this isn’t the first time he had have to deal with Howard’s shit.

“What we’re working on is a recreation of Dr. Erskine's Super Soldier Serum. The plan is to create a super powered army to take those nazis to town and deliver Hitler to the gates of hell, personally.” 

“Sounds terrific. What would I be working on for all of this?” Peter smiled a little, almost excited to be working for the government. Definitely excited for the eradication of the nazis.

“Well, I was hoping you could go and grab us some coffee. There’s a list on the back wall of things we need to get done around the lab, but coffee would be great right about now.” Howard said, slapping him over the shoulder and walking away from his younger brother, the slight happiness completely melting off of his face. He had to remind himself that he would be getting paid to do this and therefore couldn’t slap his older brother over the face with all of the force he had in his cursed bones. He would also out himself by doing that, and then the government would find him and ship him off to some secret island to conduct experiments on him and May would disown him.

So, Peter rolled his eyes with a hefty sigh and walked back out the heavy doors of the lab. He went out and bought Howard’s coffee, and while a the counter, about to order a cup for himself and Dr. Erskine, he had the most brilliant idea, so, left without Dr. Erskine’s cup and with a smirk on his face. Peter made his way back to his and may’s place for a minute, grabbing his mask and trench coat before swimming away to fight some crime and buy some ice.

Peter arrived back at the lab after quite a while, about an hour or so, and in his hands were three cups of coffee, the names of which coffee was belonging to who scribbled on the outside of each cup. When he walked in the lab, Howard turned his head to face him, upset obviously written all over him.

“What the hell took you so long?” He demanded quite harshly.

“I had trouble finding a coffee shop I thought you would like.” Peter shrugged nonchalantly.

Howard sighed, exhaustion written in his features, as if his younger brother’s presence had suddenly caused all the energy he had to seep out of him and into a puddle beneath the older brother, running his fingers his well-trimmed mustache. “Kid, there is a whole coffee maker in the break room.”

“To be fair he has already established that he doesn’t know where anything in the building is,” Dr. Erskine chimed in from across the room. Howard frowned indignantly and took the coffee Peter handed to him, not helping but to notice a leathery looking black fabric hanging out of the boy’s pocket as Peter walked away from him to check that list of educational chores.

Peter smiles to himself as he watches out of the corner of his eye as Howard attempts to not go ballistic, take deep, calming breaths as the taste of old, watery, cold, coffee drenches his palette as opposed to the rich, dark, bitter taste he was accustomed too. Peter was oddly proud of his nasty little trick, while it wasn’t a prank of Norse mythology scale, he knew deep in his heart the trickster god was giving him an encouraging smile somewhere in the cosmos. 

Peter’s list was to clean all of the tools in the lab, organize all the chemicals in the lab, take inventory of the lab and write down what they needed to ask for from the government, and feed the lab rats and make sure they’re doing well, in addition to a hundred more meaningless, rather unscientific, but tedious tasks that could be done by any other underpaid personal intern. So much for him actually making any history, aside from being Stark Industries first black employee.

To say the chores were difficult would be too much of an understatement, they just happened to be mind numbingly dull. He’d had a better time having to clean the hooves of the farmer’s horses and clean their stalls. He finished early, and went to grab his (Spider-Man’s) trench coat and leave when Howard dismissed him, but before he could head out for the final time of the day, Dr. Erskine called over to him.

“Mr. Parker, do you mind coming over here and telling me what I’m doing wrong?” He asked, Howard blinked in a bit of shock, surprised that his blacker brother had been asked to check the Doctor’s work as opposed to him. 

“Not at all, Dr. Erskine.” Peter cheerily made his way back into the room.

The much older man passed the boy the papers he’d been working on for the past view days over gratefully. For a few minutes, Peter read over what had been written down, taking in the oh, so privileged information as intensely as he could, after all, this would create another person just like him, it had to be perfect.

Peter spoke up, words just barely passing over his lips, fearing that if he made a mistake in this moment, fumbled just ever so slightly he would never have another chance to prove himself again. “I think the problem is that you need to resynchronize the primary and auxiliary autosequencers, or the resulting output decay would cause the serum that would be activated to not hit the irradiation you’re looking for.”

There was a pause in the lab, Howard’s eyes burning holes of black ash and charcoal through him. Dr. Erskine’s brow furrowed, and Peter felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Astonishing. I don’t know how I was unable to see this before, thank you Mr. Parker.” Dr. Erskine smiled and patted him on the shoulder in a congratulatory manor.

It didn’t take very long for the time to change, and Queen’s very own, friendly neighborhood bug was out on the crawl, searching for crime to bust. The crime rates in New York, since they ended prohibition and he came onto the streets, have plummeted. Though, since the Goblin went away, and preferably he took his permanent vacation somewhere cold, dark, and where the fishes swim, there’s been a mad grab for power in the streets, and it’s his duty to make sure that no one gets that power, and they all go down. Hopefully though, what with the US joining the war, that mad grab will slow down to more of a run through molasses for a goody bag not worth the trouble for anyone.

Good progress is made on the Super Soldier Serum as he was pulled into working on it more closely and the new extra help they were getting from government scientists. They blow through the days making good time, but not good enough as the Nazis make advances overseas. Every night now he walks Gwen home, she’s too scared to be able to walk herself, Peter knows first hand it’s impossible to know what lurks in the places the street lights don’t touch in New York. At night after work sometimes when they were hanging out, she’ll talk to him about her family who lives in Poland, how she worries for them everyday. His heart ached in ways he didn’t know it possible. All he knew was that he was glad he was working on making the thing that’ll create the man that’ll blast Hitler fulla holes himself.

Howard enjoys interrupting schedules, he makes a hobby of it, so of course not even Peter’s routine was sacred as he swooped down onto the Parker family home in January and picked him out like a bird of prey. Peter had just started to pull on the striped pants black and grey pants he wore as Spider-Man over his knees and looped the belt through the holes when his older brother burst through the wooden door, thankfully for him, missing any incriminating evidence as he did.

“Oh! I apologize Mr. Parker-”

“Howard.”

“Yes?”

“Please get out.”

“With pleasure.” 

A few minutes later Peter comes out of his room, meeting his older brother in the living room. He was sitting on the sofa, legs kicked up, he’d quickly made himself at home. Peter knocked the older man’s feet off the coffee table quite aggressively, standing over him.

“What in the blue blazes makes you think that you can walk up into my home, into my room without my expressed permission?” Peter asked incredulously, rolling the sleeves of his button down up onto his arms.

“I was just swinging by to see how you were doing. What, and older brother can’t be concerned for his younger brother’s wellbeing?” Howard theatrically threw his hands above his head. Peter gave him a simply matter-of-fact look, brow raised and hip jutted out at an angle like a mother who’d caught her young child in a lie. Howard deflated melodramatically, sliding down into the couch cushions. “Fine, I was bored.”

“Okay, well, you go and take your boredom elsewhere, huh? I got stuff to do.” Peter said in a patronizing tone.

“What stuff?” Howard asked, causing Peter to freeze.

“I-uh… I’m meeting a friend of mine! Yeah, um… I’m going to go see my friend.”

“Ooo! A friend! I didn’t know you had those, I would like to meet this friend.” Peter gave him a very pointed look. “I didn’t mean it like that, buddy, it’s just that you have a very… poky personality, like a porcupine.”

“Gee, thanks. You can’t come.”

“Why not? C’mon we never get to hang out and this is the perfect opportunity for us to bond! Get to know each other like real pals!”

“Howard, no.” Peter huffed, putting on his coat. Howard pouted on the couch, somehow making himself into a sympathetic character. “Oh, would you stop looking like a kicked puppy? Fine, get your jacket, c’mon.” Howard joyously sprung up to his feet, and they were off on an unexpected trip to Gwen’s.

The club was emptier than usual, but the shows still went on for the men and women still packed inside. Howard was attracted to the liquor and the women were attracted to him. Peter tried to keep Howard from running off and getting himself into trouble, which seemed to be the man’s favourite activity. 

Howard shoved a drink into Peter’s hand, which he wasn’t opposed to. “Y’know Pete-o, I don’t know anything about you, really, aside from, well, your entire life story.”

“Please don’t call me Pete-o, Howard.”

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking about all the work you’ve been doing the lab, it’s absolutely incredible, all of it. Fantastic stuff.”

“That’s nice.” Peter nodded, disinterested as he sipped on the drink Howard had bought him. It was disgusting and burned his throat, but he’d drank worse to drown better sorrows.

“Your mind is impeccable, kid. After the war, make sure you remind me to get you your own lab.”

Peter nodded, not listening to Howard’s slurred compliments, looking over his shoulder, at the stage, bright blazing red hair peaked out from the curtains. His eyes might as well been shaped like hearts and his heart beating out his chest, with the easy, airy smile that melted on his face like butter. 

“You know you’re my favourite little brother.” Howard asked, grabbing the younger boy’s shoulder, with a tipsy smile.

Out of shock he snapped out of with Gwen induced trance. “I- Howard, as far as I know I’m your only brother.”

“Precisely.” 

“Oh, would you shut that trap of yours, you egg?” Peter narrowed his eyes at his older brother who mocked zipping his lips, leaning back onto the bar. 

Howard managed to stay silent for a few moments before he ended up getting swept into the crowd. Though Peter didn’t even notice until Gwen had vanished from the stage and he was left reeling trying to find him for the moment. Peter went from table to table, back to front and all over the floor looking for the man. Peter gave up, deciding that Howard was a grown man after all, and could, in theory, take care of himself if he was required to.

Peter should not have been so surprised to see Howard backstage, after all, he was rich, and could get anything he wanted if he wanted it that much. All around him were giggling girls, and he couldn’t blame them for being seduced by his unnerving charm. By his side was Gwen, but he couldn't find it within himself to angry at all. Not at her, not at him, just, disappointed. His heart like it fell deep into his chest, somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be. Maybe, in himself for allowing Gwen to get away or for having any amount of hope in such a radical sentiment, because he is a black boy and she’s a white woman, with blonde hair and blue eyes and freckles all across her nose and gap teeth. Why would she ever want him? Peter turned on his heels and got out of the building, but not before Gwen caught sight of him walking out.

In between his fingers, a cigarette flame bloomed, the ashes dropping off into the wind, the smoke furling and fuming from his lungs and into the air. He waited outside the club alone, in the dark, for Howard to come out with some woman on his arm, so he could get Howard and the girl to their destination without incident, there’s a lot someone could have to gain kidnapping the richest genius in the city. Couldn’t let that happen, risk losing his job.

Two cigarettes in, the door behind him opened, Peter didn’t look up to see who it was.

“I didn’t think you smoked.” Gwen said, going over to stand beside him on the curb. 

“I do. Occasionally.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Having to deal with my brother.” Peter spoke uncermously, inhaling deeply before letting the firey plumes out from between his lips. He glanced over to her. She stood close to him, her shoulders draped with her jacket almost touching his.

“You never told me you had a brother.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind. I don’t have to broker an introduction though, since you just met him.” 

“Wha- Howard’s your brother? How do you forget your half brother is one of the richest men stateside?”

“It’s not something I like to remember. He isn’t that great of a man.”

“Is that why you’re out here?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t act like I’m some chippy canary who’s brain up and packed it’s bindle. I saw you walk out and I saw your face. Are you out here because of him, or is it me, because you’re never this blue and spotty all over when you see me coming down the corner. And you’re never have a gasper in your mouth.” Gwen grabs the butt from his lips and throws it onto the sidewalk.

“I try not to keep a habit of it. My mother didn’t like it. Hit me side up the head when she caught me with one in my mouth once.” Peter spoke through gritted teeth. It wasn’t her fault he was upset, he didn’t want her to even see him like this.

“Avoiding the question isn’t like you, Peter, are you going to loosen those lips of yours and tell me what’s going on or do I have to gumshoe my way into figuring it out?”

“It’s not like there’s anything either of us could do to fix it,” Peter sighed.

“It’s not like I would know, Peter! You’re not telling me anything and if you don’t there will definitely be no solution, if I knew I could at least help!”

“You can’t Gwen! There’s nothing to do to hel., I just… wanna forget about it, okay?”

“… Fine. I’ll drop it for now, but I refuse to stand idly by when you’re obviously in pain, even if you’re too much of an egg to see, because I care about you, Peter.” Gwen huffed, frowning. Peter’s lips pulled into a thin line, trying to ignore the daggers he felt in his side, shooting from her eyes.

Gwen crossed her arms, standing beside him. She sniffled a little, but had refused herself the comfort of going inside if Peter was out here. She was going to squeeze it out of him, that or her incessant thoughts and loose lips would squeeze her first. “You should go inside,” Peter said to her in barely a whisper, “It’s cold.” She could tell he was much colder than her though, despite not shivering.

“After you.” She spoke pointedly.

“Why do you even hang around me?” Peter asked. “It’s not like I’m the best person to be around. I’m not very nice either, or funny, or attractive in the least bit. So why, Gwen?” Peter asked unintentional aggression in his voice, nostrils flared. 

“Because I love you, Peter. That’s why. You’re my friend and I love you and I care about you even if you don’t love me back, okay? And I don’t care what you have to say about it.”

“I- What?” Peter felt as though he had been clipped right in the side or some dope peddler slipped something in his drink because he suddenly felt dizzy, shock running in his veins while his cheeks brightened.

“There. I had to say it. Didn’t know if your genius mind was bright enough to see that dull fact right in front of you, but it doesn't matter whether or not you like me back, because you’re my friend.”

Peter swallowed even though his throat was dry, adam’s apple bobbing as he tried to formulate words. “But- I… I don’t… I gotta go.” Peter barely managed before turning and ducking out, Gwen yelling after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow my tumblr to leave me anon hate


	12. An Attempt at Sorting These Things Out

A shadow across the wall, flittering, barely there. The men tried to play it off, tried to calm their nerves as they moved the packages from the warehouse to the truck. Dope peddlers, with sweat on their brows of the man of eyes without a face, who lurks in the dark. Some sticky dick who didn’t conform to the laws of the land, a call copper who left no trail, a button man with an axe to grind with fellow law-breakers, an ex-policeman gone rouge due to frustration with ever-permanent corruption within the department; all of these good guesses, but no cigar, because there was only one man who’d seen underneath the mask, and he was wearing a Chicago overcoat in some pauper's grave or dancing with the fishes for eternity. Spider-Man’s last kill.

One of the men swore he heard he faint sound of the spider’s silk rope. Thwip. Thwip. Thwip. They all tried to write it off as the leaky pipe, or the rats that scattered across their feet, who they couldn’t see at all because of the darkness of the night. They hoped they could manage the night, get to the next day to see their pay. Yet again, no cigar.

The Spider swung down into the center of the scene, within seconds, Chicago lightning fired off in rapid speed, threatening the patron god Thor himself with it’s deafening strength. The men’s eyes were spotty from the bright flashes as they burn powder like they tear pages out of a bible. All of them had missed like there hadn’t ever even been a man there in the first place. In fact, some even shot each other, blood now covering the ground, splattered about like rain drops.

The Spider stole the remaining guns with the use of his silk, tossing them aside before proceeding to kick their asses, dry gulching the lot of them. Tying them up for the coppers to find, except for one particularly scared boy who trembled so hard he couldn’t move. The boy was no older than twelve. The Spider picked him up by his collar violently, the shirt was too big for him so he sunk into it as the masked face came just too close to his.

The boy could feel the breath of The Spider through the leather mask, he squirmed in the tight grip, but it was iron. “Tell me son, who’s behind this?”

“I-I don’t know! I don’t know please!” He begged, crying. His legs kicked as The Spider hoisted him higher into the air, till the boys feet were off the ground.

The Spider let out an intimidating huff of air into his face. The breath was hot and sticky in contrast to the cool night air. “That’s the wrong answer.”

“They told me not to tell, o-or they’d kill me.”

“They can’t kill you if they’re locked up. All I need is one little name, they won’t be able to pick out who snitched out from this crowd of rats.”

“Kingpin.” He wheezed out, and The Spider set him back down to earth. “He-he’s gonna be at the Warwick soon… I’m supposed to be apart of the detail… oh god…”

“You’re gonna be my way in. After Kingpin goes under, testify against them, do some good.”

“W-why are you sparing me?” The boy asked. The Spider didn’t reply

Landing on what was supposed to be a lonely island in the archipelago of New York rooftops, he saw a woman, who most certainly saw him back, she saw him first in fact.

This strange woman had victory rolls and hair red enough he could make out the color in this late of night, and lipstick to match it. In her hands, a stopwatch and a clipboard. She was wearing some official government issued glad rags.

“Impressive work. You’ve managed to take out those gangsters in record time,” She said in perfect song-like Queen’s English.

“You’ve been watching me, for a while.” He stated plainly, attempting consciously to force any and all southern remnants out of his accent, standing tall, and looking intimidating in all black and leather, but hardly anything along the likes of mysterious intimidates her, not thar he would know that.

“I believe that your little stunts, swinging across the city on hardly visible silk and taking down one of New York’s biggest mobsters, had just about everyone who has eyes and ear’s attention.”

“Why are you here?”

“My name is Agent Peggy Carter, and I have been tasked by the USSR to bring you in,” The proper English woman said, an air of confidence.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you seem like a nice lady and all but I don’t work with the government this or any other day. No matter what branch, they’re all corrupt.”

“I can assure you that I have been involved in no back hand dealings.”

“It doesn’t have to be you; it’s every powerful, old white man who’d been forcing me into using my gifts for their nefarious purposes.”

“I can understand your apprehensions, sir, but what we’re trying to do is much bigger than any of our own personal apprehensions. We’re working on something that could end the war, something that would save lives. Countless lives. I can only imagine that you put on that mask of yours to save them, and that you take out these thugs to do that, so there is no question of the goodness of your character. You want to do the right thing, when you come around on your own terms the USSR will be here to work alongside you to fight the good fight. I’ll be expecting your call.” The Agent threw him a calling card and promptly exited the rooftop. Peter pocketed the card.

Peter walked into the lab that morning early to see many men carrying things out into boxes, confusion filling him as they busied about him. In the center of the storm, Howard, in a fashionable jumper and clipboard in hand, shouted out directions to the poor workers who were just trying to do their job.

“Oh, Peter! Just the little brother I was looking for! I was wondering if you’d enjoy going out for a drink, like we did last week! We could even go to that cheap place you took me to last time.” Howard smiled at him.

“Howard, what in the blue blazes going on here?” Peter shouted over the commotion.

“It’s moving day Pete, all the tech to make the world’s first super soldier is getting put into a secret USSR base while the Doctor gets to work on finding a suitable first man.” Howard spoke as if it was common knowledge.

“I love how you just keep me in the dark about every little thing until it’s happening, y’know? One of your better traits,” Peter huffed, his arms folded tightly across his chest.

“Yeesh, how ‘bout you tell me how you really feel?” Howard pouted, picking up a carton of fresh fruit that had been sitting on the table beside him. He offered it to Peter. “Blackberry?”

“Can we talk about how you’re wearing a jumpsuit as if you didn’t hire a dozen or more men to do all the work for you? Dressed like you’re about to do something. I wanna talk about that, can we talk about that?” Peter spoke quickly and with a humorous tone, taking a blackberry and placing it on his tongue. The fruit was bittersweet, its bloody purple juice gushing in his mouth. Howard smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he slapped Peter on the shoulder.

“You currently are just about the straightest shooter, aren’t you, Pete? Always telling everyone like it is.” 

“I suppose I am, but who else here will tell you just how much of an idiot you are?”

“Just you, and her.” Howard gestured to a well uniformed and groomed woman with iconically red lips who was making her way over to them. Peter’s stomach dropped, recognizing it to be the woman from the night prior.

“Mr. Stark, I see that you’ve busied yourself quite nicely in watching over our shipment, how are things?”

“They’re great, Peggy! This is my brother, Peter, by the way! He’s the one I’ve been telling you about, and how much great work he’s been doing.” Howard shoved him forward to the very intimidating older woman.

Peter was wide eyed, feeling the faintest amount of sweat build up onto his brow as he stuck out his hand for her to shake. “It-it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am.” 

“Nonsense, Mr. Parker. The pleasure is all mine. The USSR needs bright minds such as yours, and Howard obviously needs someone to keep him in check.” Peggy cracked a smile, ignoring how blatantly she struck the fear of god into him.

“How long do you think until we can test out the machine?” Howard asked Peggy.

“Not too long. I’m sure Dr. Erskine will be able to shift through the boys and find whatever he’s looking for. While you seem to be doing an excellent job making random scribbles on a clipboard with nothing on it, you can go home now. Make sure you buy that child something nice as apology for making him think hanging around you is a decent idea.”

Howard laughs. “Good one, very funny he loves being with me. Don’t you, Pete?” Howard looked to Peter, who made a face. “Okay. Noted. Apology gift. Go on then, Pete, you go home to your Aunt, tell her I said hi.”

“I won’t. Have a nice day, ma’am.” He waves to Peggy, swiftly leaving, not waiting to listen in to the conversation that took place in his absence.

Howard’s arms crossed uncomfortably over his chest. “Did you make contact with him?”

“Yes, I did. He didn’t seem too keen on the idea of handing himself over to the USSR.”

“Who could blame him, we’re a government organization and he’s a local vigilante who’s already been chased down by several coppers. He’s probably scared shitless we’d tear him in half.”

“I left him my card. The Spider seems to have his heart in the right place and he’s obviously not afraid of filling a few nazis with a couple of holes here and now. With his help and an army of super soldiers? We’d be guaranteed victory.”

“So we just have to wait until he decides to make contact? Why didn’t you guys just take him in?”

“As you said, Mr. Stark, he’s probably scared shitless of us and he isn’t overseas right now, meaning he could be underage or disabled or a minority, and might just have family he’s in charge of on top of any of those factors. It’s important we have his help, but we can’t receive it if he doesn’t have complete faith in us.” Howard sighed, thumbs in his temples as his elbows were propped up against the metal of the railing. “Have patience, Mr. Stark, I’m sure he’ll turn around soon.”

Across the city, above one of the most elicit speakeasies in New York, The Black Cat, Felicia Hardy is minding her own business, a true master or the craft one might call her. One familiar black shadow was cast across the room.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Felicia asked the shadow, which crawled its way inside her window.

“Figured the least I could do was stop by and see how you were doing. Make sure you knew that I didn’t forget about you.” The shadow sat carefully down in one of her luxurious, chairs, as if he were still scared of ruining everything he could touch in the room flooded with luxury, funded by the money of wicked men. Her white cat purred at the sight of him, rubbing against his stripe cotton clad leg.

“How could I possibly think that when you’re always showing up to my bar scaring away business, looking like a dead man, Peter. Take off that ridiculous costume, for your sake and mine.” Felicia rolled her eyes as Peter took off the mask, trench coat folded in his lap. “I don’t know how you think you’re going to be able wear that when summer hits.” Felicia spoke, mostly to herself.

“I’m the cause of my own suffering it seems.” Peter shrugged, putting a snipe between his teeth. Felicia walked over, lighting it for him.

“You don’t say?” She asked sarcastically, a smile playing at her red lips. “Why do you visit me so often? You don’t need to watch over me, you know, I am a very capable woman.”

“As if I wouldn’t know that myself? In all honesty, I don’t know. Here lately it feels like everything I touch I fuck up beyond all belief. So I’ve been guessing that if I keep my distance, watch over stuff, stay outta the way, I won’t hurt nobody.”

“This is about the girl, right, Gwen?” Felicia asked, in an understanding tone of voice.

“I suppose it is, at least a portion.” Peter let out a long sigh, he ashed his cigarette and took a drag. “She told me that she likes me back, but I freaked out when she said it. I been waiting how long for the bittiest chance at her? And then I go and screw it all up like the crumb that I am.”

“You’re no crumb, in fact, you’re a fine catch, that’s why she likes you back. If you explain everything I’m sure that she’d understand.”

“What if I didn’t? This life I’m leading is dangerous, everytime I’m around people, I’m putting them in danger. I think I was cursed long before I was bitten. A curse of horrible luck, no doubt. Maybe if I just leave everything, everyone right well alone, no one will get hurt anymore.”

“But would you be able to live like that?” Felicia asked him, Peter looked at her with wide brown eyes. His hair was all thrown about from wearing the mask, he looked sick, like he was on his last leg. “We humans are social creatures, and just because your body and your life changed, doesn’t mean you did Peter. Everybody needs somebody. You'll go crazy all alone.”

Peter sat quietly, smoking his snipe, letting her sage advice bounce around his skull while Felicia poured herself a glass of wine. Her silvery hair reflecting the warm light of her crystal chandelier. She offered him a bottle. 

“You've been quite alone lately, sure you haven't gone mad?” Peter asked, confused at the bottle of surely expensive red wine in his hands.

“Maybe I have, but who's to say, certainly not you.” She sassed, her white hair glossy in the low light of her office. "Fill me on the rest, will you?"

“Uh… an agent tried to get me to join their agency, but that’s not really important.”

“What agency?”

“The SSR.”

“And who was asked for their time, Peter, or The Spider-Boy?”

“It’s The Spider, or Spider-Man, not Spider-Boy," Peter reminded her, "And they asked Spider-Man to join. The lady who was representing them told me about how they’re trying to end the war. It’s the same agency that Howard hired Peter to help with his work on.”

“What’s the plan, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to join?” Felicia asked, taking a sip or her wine.

“I don’t think so… I don’t know. I want to do good. I want to do the right thing.”

“Then do the right thing, Peter. You need to start pulling yourself together, dear, the world doesn't wait for us to sit, it takes what we want from us if we stay for too long. So you either do what you think is right or you don’t Peter, but don’t lick your wounds for too long you forget to act.”

Peter nodded solemnly, his lips pulled into a tight line on his ghostly face. He stood up to leave. “Thank you, Miss Hardy, I’ll see you again soon.”

“I’m sure that I will.” Felicia spoke knowingly, taking another sip of her wine. The shadow promptly exiting out of her window.


	13. Coming To An Agreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm only gonna be uploading like once ish a month bc of work and school

The Kingpin. An underground crime ring surging beneath his feet, dealing in all sorts of black markets, anything dealing with dope peddling or putting young girls up for grabs for a little lettuce, it all seemed to have one name running right back to it: Kingpin. Peter would see and end to it, just like he did to The Green Goblin, and just like he does to every petty thief or dope peddler every night until early morning. 

Though, what would any of this matter if the Nazi regime took over? Aunt May, Gwen, (who he really needed to get back to,) every black, brown, and Jew were in grave danger. Peggy’s card warped underneath the heat of his hands and the pressure of his fingers on the cardstock. Peter could debate with himself back and forth for days, but for either situation, something had to give, and if he wasn’t the one to give it, who would? Anxiety threatens to ruin him, but he needs to remain composed. Everything always seems to rest on his shoulders.

“Hello? This is Agent Carter speaking.” A sleepy, smooth voice sang from the other side of the pay phone.

Peter took a deep breath, channeling his much darker New York accent, before whispering to himself, “I hope I’m doing the right thing right now…” There’s a silence on both ends, but Peter can feel Ms. Carter thinking through the phone and pulls the mask over his face once again like he had so many times since he’d been cursed. “This is The Spider, come catch me, I cast my web out on 90th and 155, Parson Boulevard, but I don’t plan on moving in so don’t make me wait. Bring who you want, Agent, but we negotiate on my terms or not at all.”

“Understood, I’ll see you when I arrive.”

Arrive she did, and she arrived with about twelve other men, who were there to help her usher him into their clown cars to a secret USSR, base where they’d negotiate the terms of their agreement. 

The interrogation room was dark, lit only by one light that swung from the celling by a cord, they’d picked this room to strike a flame of fear somewhere in him no doubt, that or they’d gotten some bad info that he was allergic to light. There was a mirror on the wall across from him, long, and stretching from one side of the wall to the other. Peter’s hearing could pick up the fait buzz of its electrical current, a faint and flickering hum that made him feel like he’d shoved cotton in his ears. Because Peggy made contact, and was the one to bring him in, she was the one to sit across from him at the steel table in the brick and mortar room.

The door that had led him in had locked and bolted, reenforced steel and Peggy situated the files in her manicured hands. If they truly thought he was this dangerous, why not take him out and scrape out his insides to fuel their research? She placed the papers down onto the table, spread out in an organized fashion.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, officially. I’m sure there’s another name that I could call you that isn’t The Spider, yes?” 

“No. That’s my rule number one, you don’t get to know my identity. That goes with me to my grave, Ms. Carter. Make sure your friends in the other room write that down.”

Peggy’s eyebrows drew together, mouth slightly agape. “Pardon me?”

Peter crossed his arms over his chest, the leather trench coat squeaking slightly as it chafed against itself. He kicked his legs up onto the table. “The people in the other room, ma’am. On the other side of the one way mirror? Don’t act like I can be tricked into thinking this conversation was just a you and me thing.”

“Most people would've never guessed that was a one sided mirror. How on earth could you have guessed that?” Peggy asked, impressed. 

“The heart beats. I can uh- I can hear all of their heart beats, snippets of their conversations, a cough or two, y’know?”

“That is absolutely fascinating. What else can you hear?”

“I can hear the light bulb and the electrical current running through it, I can hear how your breathing’s changed since we started talking, it’s gotten… excited, like you’re about to do something thrilling or you’re getting huge news. I heard the door get bolted, locking us inside until someone decides to let us out. Steel, really good choice to keep me all locked up. Were you expecting I’d try and kill you all? That I’d turn out to be dangerous?”

“We took the necessary precautions, because you are dangerous. With all due respect, sir, you run in through the streets committing vigilante justice, wrapping up bad men in silken thread like a cartoon but all including on the messy guts and gore. Despite your disregard to the law, you have a drive to do good, that much is obvious. You single handedly cleaned up the streets of New York because no one else would and you’ve stuck around to make sure it stays that way. We need men like that in this fight, I think you know that just as much as anyone does. That’s why you called me tonight, yes?”

Peter stayed silent, staring at her through the lenses of what really was Benjamin's mask. He suddenly felt small, like there was a light cast through him and Peggy Carter could see through the hole the light made in him. Peggy slid a paper and pen over to him.

“Write your demands, we’ll be sure to follow them, whatever they may be.”

Peter took the sleek pen in his gloved hand, writing out everything in detail, making sure there were no loopholes that they could catch him on, and signing his name at the bottom before passing it back over to Peggy who had waited patiently for him to finish. She read it over for a second before a brow shot up.

“You know Mr. Parker?” She asked incredulously, Peter could hear a heart in the other room change it’s pace and Peter didn’t know why he was surprised that Howard was here. Why was he here?

“Stark’s half-brother?” Peter spoke, because of course he’d be having to play up the split between his identity. “Of course I know him, we’re close friends, and he designs my tech, but his connection to be has to be kept quiet. His aunt would kill him if she found out he was working with me.”

Peggy nodded slightly, obviously not having expected this. “Yes... So, Mr. Parker designed your webbing and your hearing aids?”

“No, no, uh- that’s just me. I wasn’t… always like this but after I mutated it was like all of my senses were dialed up to the highest they could be, and I could make silk out of my wrists. But, he has been tinkering with making a web shooter to improve the web quality and consistency. He did make the mask to uh- to help me focus though.”

“Mutation? You came into contact with radiation?”

“Worse.”

Peggy took a moment, hesitating to ask because she didn’t even know if she wanted to know. “What is worse than being mutated via radiation?”

“It sounds silly and like I’ve been sniffing up to much of that poder dope slingers throw up when they see my shadow… but I was cursed. I saw the same thing that got me kill another man, but I didn’t die. I mean, if I did, she brought me back.”

“She? How do you know?”

“It’s just one of those things you know. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and something strange happened to me, and suddenly I have these powers. She said- she said that I was different, then the others that she had killed, so she said that she would do something worse to me than them and she cursed me with responsibility and I woke up feeling like power was surging through my body. I could hear every sound, feel every minuscule change in the wind on the tips of my fingers, I didn’t need my glasses anymore, and I could fly through the air on thread.”

“I’d be inclined to not believe you, but I’ve seen what you can do, but I’ve seen what you can do.”

“So have I, ma’am. I wouldn’t believe it for a second if it hadn’t happened to me, but it did.”

“How do you feel, after having gained these abilities? I can imagine it must be hard having to get used to these powers.” 

“It feels… like she was right. These powers and this responsibility I have is horrid, a curse, but I’d like to think she was right, that I’m a good man, I want to do good, and not using these… gifts to save people will cost people their lives, and if I don’t help then their deaths are on me. All of them.”

Peggy nodded and their conversation continued about the details of their arrangement, including mandatory physicals and training for both Peter and The Spider as insurance. After singing everyone to their eyes in NDAs, they sent The Spider back to where they’d picked him up. When Peggy’s superior asked for her report on him, she slapped the file onto his desk.

“I think he’s a perfect fit.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna be really weird, so just like, wait a few chapters before you judge me too bad, thanks for reading tho lmao.


End file.
